LIBRARY 



CONGRESS 




DODDSliaaiB 



».• ^/>*- -^ '.'v^^^r.* ,o.*- 







'h9 



•^0* 

.*-^°- 






• .■i>'%. 














. • s 











o« • 






r- ^-^^ 









^^■^^. 



























fr^O,«. 



'''^v.%' 



5"^ 












!■<>. 









* '" «^ . • • , 



THE ISSUE 



THE ISSUE 



J. W. HEADLAM, M.A. 

AUTHOR OF "LIFE OF BISMARCK," "THE HISTORY OF 

TWELVE DAYS," " ENGLAND, GERMANY, 

AND EUROPE" 



HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

1917 



03613 



Copyrighty igiy 

By Houghton Mifflin Company 

All rights resewed 



FEB -7 1917 

©C1,A453951 



i 



NOTE 

Chapters I, II, III, and IV of this book have 
aheady appeared in the Nineteenth Century and After, 
Chapter V is reprinted from the Westminster Gazette. 
h- I have to express my obUgation to the Editors for 
permission to reprint them in the present form. They 
are reprinted almost without alteration, and I have 
not^ attempted to change ^them, even in those cases 
where what was written some months ago would 
now be expressed rather differently. The Introduction 
is new. 



CONTENTS 

Introduction i 

I. Two Manifestoes 41 

II. The Party Leaders 63 

III. The German Chancellor and Peace . 74 

IV. Prince Bulow on Peace 103 

V. Central Europe 122 

Appendixes: 

I. Manifesto of the Six Industrial 

Associations 143 

II. Germany's Peace Terms 152 



Vll 



THE ISSUE 



INTRODUCTION 

The articles contained in this volume, which were 
written during the summer of last year, contain 
an examination of some of the suggestions as 
to terms of peace which have from time to time 
appeared in Germany. I republish them, for 
they may be useful as helping to throw into a 
proper perspective the complaints that now come 
from Germany, that it is England, and England 
alone, which, by the immoderate nature of her 
demands, stands between Europe and the peace 
which all desire. It is well to probe the nature 
of the terms which many men in Germany would 
have proposed at a time when a decisive German 
victory still appeared probable. It is well that 
we should not forget these things, for there are 
still not only neutrals, but even Englishmen, 
who continue to talk as though the British 
Government had wantonly refused favourable 
offers of peace and reasonable terms of reconcilia- 
tion which had been offered by the German 
Chancellor. 

It would have been easy to increase the bulk 
of the book, by including in it selections from the 



2 THE ISSUE 

press and from the pamphlets issued in such 
abundance by private individuals. I have deliber- 
ately refrained from doing so. Nothing is more 
pernicious than the modern habit of quoting freely 
in other countries the foolish and exaggerated 
utterances of obscure individuals and newspapers, 
or the noisy leaders of extreme factions, who are 
to be found in every country, and by transporting 
them across the frontier giving them an import- 
ance which no one at home would attribute to 
them. It is a habit to which even distinguished 
German historians have given their support, and 
we find the official spokesmen of the Government, 
and men such as Prince Biilow, quoting as evi- 
dence of English intentions the words of English- 
men which are treated at home with the neglect 
that they deserve. In this I do not propose to 
imitate them; I have endeavoured to confine 
myself to evidence as to what seems to be the 
considered opinion of the responsible Government, 
the leaders of parties, the corporate opinion of 
influential associations, or the writing of men 
who appear to carry real weight in Germany. 

Some apology is necessary from anyone who at 
such a time says or does anything that may seem 
to tend to postpone the arrival of peace. No 
position is so contemptible as that of the man of 
letters who, from the security of his home, where 
he is himself free from danger and hardships, 
adds to the spirit of national animosity which has 
already reached so lamentable a pitch, or con- 



INTRODUCTION 3 

tributes to the prolongation of the war, when he 
knows that by so doing he is helping to send 
thousands of men from every country in Europe 
to misery and death. It would to me be far more 
agreeable to join those who demand that the 
slaughter and destruction should now cease, and 
who ask with indignation what sound reason 
can be given for its continuance. But, in public 
as in private affairs he is not always the best 
peacemaker who refuses to recognise the existence 
of any real cause of difference. On the contrary, 
a clear recognition and definition of the matters 
at issue may often prove the best means towards 
reconciliation. And so I have attempted to put 
into the clearest light, using the evidence afforded 
by the statements of the Germans themselves, 
what is the real issue of the war, and the reason 
why the only suggestions as to peace which have 
come to us from Germany, with any claim to 
authority, are unacceptable. 

I call this book The Issue. There have been 
in fact three great issues of the war, but it is on 
one of them alone, that which was the first and 
remains the last, that I wish to concentrate at- 
tention. The three issues were what we may 
call the Atlantic, the Eastern, and the European. 
Of these, the first was in a way secondary; i. e., 
it did not arise from the origin of the war and the 
conflict with Russia, but was only brought into 
prominence by the entry of England into the con- 
flict. We can say with certainty, that it had not 



4 THE ISSUE 

been the intention of the German Government, 
and those who moved for war, to attempt to 
settle the issue with Great Britain before that 
with France and Russia had been decided. This 
we must remember; but there is also no doubt 
that in the German Nation itself this now holds 
the most prominent place. The overthrow of 
the British dominion at sea, the consequent dis- 
solution of the British Empire, the transference 
of sea power from Great Britain to Germany, is 
that on which they have for many years set their 
heart, and which is now their avowed aim. It is 
an ambition which, as we may recognise, is natu- 
ral enough, and I do not see that we have any 
ground for complaint if they chose to challenge 
us. Our Empire has been gained by war, and if 
it is attacked it must be maintained by war. The 
ambition, at least, was not necessarily an ignoble 
one; it sprang not merely from vulgar jealousy 
or from commercial competition ; there was in it 
perhaps something of the great spirit of romance 
and adventure. The new Germany which has 
grown up during the last fifteen years has looked, 
as in the past many generations of Englishmen 
have looked, to the larger world beyond the seas. 
The forests of Africa called them and the Coral 
Islands of the Pacific, the romance of the East 
and the limitless expanses of the ocean summoned 
them to vistas and ambitions which had been 
closed to their forefathers, shut up within the 
narrow limits of their petty states and tiny 



INTRODUCTION 5 

cities. They wished to be recognised in these 
distant lands, not only as settlers, traders, and 
explorers, but as members of a great imperial race, 
as conquerors, rulers, and administrators. It was 
a great ambition natural to a nation looking upon 
the world full of the longing for great deeds, 
desirous to take their place in the secular succes- 
sion of great empires, desirous that Germany 
and a German ruler should be one of the series 
whose names are irrevocably written upon the 
chronicle of the ages, wishful to emulate the 
deeds if not of Alexander and of Caesar, at least 
of Alani and of Attila. There is an immortality 
awarded to destruction as well as to creation, and 
there was one thing alone that seemed worth 
doing, the overthrow of the British Empire. I 
say that it is not an ambition which we need 
grudge them; it sprang from their full knowl- 
edge of the greatness of the task. They saw that 
the British Empire was the only institution of the 
present day which seemed to challenge, in the 
greatness of its achievements and the magnifi- 
cence of its ideals, the great empires of the past. 
We hold the challenge cup of the world, and it 
was by challenging us alone that they could be- 
come one of the great world-empires. 

Such a challenge could not be refused. Noth- 
ing would be more lamentable than that the 
countrymen of Drake and Hawke and Nelson, of 
Clive and Wolfe and Wellington, should shrink 
from it or fail in the courage and resolution to 



6 THE ISSUE 

keep up by their own deeds what had been ac- 
quired by their fathers. 

There were many among them who believed, 
and I suspect beHeved with regret, that no con- 
flict would be necessary, that the British Empire 
would fall by the forces of decay which seemed 
to be eating away its very heart, as did the 
Empire of Spain; of this there was no doubt, 
and for thirty years there has been no doubt that 
the day would come that, if the British Empire 
did not fall to pieces of itself, the Germans would 
attempt to wrest from us the sovereignty of the 
seas. 

This was their golden fleece. But the golden 
fleece was guarded by the dragon. They had no 
Medea to charm the dragon to sleep. They 
ploughed with their steeds and the armed men 
sprang up from the earth, but they had no magic 
to throw among them to make them turn their 
arms against one another. 

In truth this branch of the war had been 
decided before the first shot was fired. It was 
decided fifteen years ago. A successful attack 
on England's maritime and naval position was 
only possible on the hypothesis, either that it 
was unexpected and unprepared for, and that the 
self-governing dominions would not support the 
mother country in the war, or that Germany had 
allies who could give her efficient help on sea as 
well as on land. What danger there was from 
the first contingency had been removed owing to 



INTRODUCTION 7 

the extraordinary folly of the Emperor and 
Prince Biilow. They talked, they boasted, they 
swaggered, and they bullied, but talk and boast- 
ing, swaggering and bullying are not the best 
preparations for victory. The issue was decided 
in the South African War, for in this it was 
shown that the enmity of Germany to this coun- 
try was one which concerned not the British 
Isles alone, but the whole structure and cohe- 
rence of the Empire. This gave a new purpose 
and conviction to the imperial naval strategy, 
and England was therefore not unprepared, for 
Great Britain became conscious that she was act- 
ing as the trustee, not for herself alone, but for 
all that was involved in the maintenance of the 
integrity of the Empire. The second danger 
was removed by the failure of German diplo- 
macy, which brought it about that she entered 
on this war without allies (except Turkey) who 
could give her any effective assistance in the 
struggle with the British Empire. 

The second issue is that which centres round 
Turkey. The instrument of it was German 
patronage of Mahomedanism. Based as it was 
on the perfidious intrigues carried on during the 
years of nominal peace, it is the greatest crime 
against European civilisation of which any state 
has yet been guilty, for it depended on the alli- 
ance between German and Turkish militarism, 
the avowed object of which was to set up again 
Turkish rule in Egypt, and to use the wild pas- 



8 THE ISSUE 

sions of Islam for the overthrow of the civilising 
influence of Europe. 

In this part of the war the decision has long 
been delayed. The issue in it will depend on that 
in the European war. 

There remains the third and the great issue, 
that with which the war began, and with which 
it will close: the question of the predominance 
of Germany in Europe. In truth it includes the 
other two, for to a Germany predominant in 
Europe the conquest of the East would be 
open, and against a Germany which wielded the 
resources, military and material, of the whole of 
Central Europe, England would eventually be un- 
able to hold her own. Let us therefore consider 
for a moment what is at stake in this matter. 

The origin of the war and its object are iden- 
tical ; there has been no change in the views of 
Germany. What the issue was in August, 19 14, 
that it is now. If we look beyond the details of 
the discussions and the negotiations to the great 
issue, that is, as it always has been, simple 
enough, and there is, I think, no difference as to 
the facts between the two parties. The strong- 
est accusation which is made against Germany 
by the Allies is in fact acknowledged and cor- 
roborated by German statesmen and German 
writers. The ultimate question is not whether 
Germany wished for war ; it has been contended 
by the Chancellor, and perhaps with truth, that 
he did all in his power to avoid war. It is a mat- 



INTRODUCTION 9 

ter of faith among the German Nation that the 
Emperor was in 191 4, as always, pecuharly 
averse from war. Let us assume that these con- 
tentions are true. There still remains the undis- 
puted fact that, though Germany may have 
wished to avoid war, the one condition on which 
she would preserve peace was that she should be 
allowed to dictate to the whole of Europe the 
conditions on which peace could be maintained. 
The real accusation against Germany is that she 
attempted to use the fear inspired by her great 
military power and her alliance with Austria- 
Hungary, to put herself in a position in which 
her preponderance over Europe would have been 
practically assured. 

The general custom of Europe is that when a 
diplomatic question arises which affects Europe 
as a whole, and in particular when this is one in 
which there is a conflict of interests between two 
great powers, neither shall proceed to military 
action or take any irrevocable step without 
first consulting and informing the other powers, 
her friends or allies (for in Europe all states are 
in principle friends or allies), and shall certainly 
not proceed to military action until every effort 
has been made by negotiation and conference to 
find a friendly settlement. The whole diplomatic 
history of Europe since 181 5 is an illustration of 
this truth. If this rule were disregarded, it is 
scarcely too much to say that there is not a year 
in which a great war would not have broken out. 



10 THE ISSUE 

Now, in this case Germany and Austria deliber- 
ately, and on principle, violated this rule. They 
laid down the proposition that if Austria went 
to war with Serbia, it was a local matter in which 
the rest of Europe was not concerned. They 
knew, and it can be shown from their own state- 
ments that they knew, that this was a proposition 
which could not be willingly accepted by Russia, 
a proposition, that is, which could only be en- 
forced either by the sword or by the threat of 
war. They knew that it raised in the acutest form 
fundamental questions of Russian interest. They 
knew that for more than a hundred years it had 
been understood that if either Russia or Austria 
took a step forward in the Balkans, they would 
at once meet the opposition of the other power, 
and they knew that just because of this, either 
state, whenever it proposed to take action, had 
always consulted the other beforehand. This 
had again and again been done by Russia. The 
whole history of the negotiations preceding the 
Crimean War and of those preceding the Russo- 
Turkish War of 1877, illustrates this. On both 
occasions Russia had, by a preliminary under- 
standing with Austria, to clear the way before 
she went to war with Turkey. If at that time 
Russia had brought military pressure to bear, 
either on Rumania or on Turkey, Austria must 
at once have protected her interests by mobilisa- 
tion or by war, unless she had been consulted 
beforehand by Russia. 



INTRODUCTION n 

Now in this case Germany and Austria deliber- 
ately, and on principle, violated this rule; know- 
ing as they did that the Austrian action raised 
in the acutest form fundamental questions of 
Russian interest, they claimed for Austria the 
right to take what action they chose, and laid 
down the cardinal principle that no other power 
was to be consulted; that is, they eliminated 
Europe from a question in regard to which the 
whole of European diplomacy had been most 
concerned. It matters not in the least whether 
the Austrian demands were legitimate or not; 
what does matter is that if their action had been 
allowed to go forward unopposed, the principle 
would have been accepted that Germany and 
Austria were themselves the sole judges of their 
action on matters of general import, and they 
would have claimed and secured a privileged 
position, the result of which would have been that 
the rest of Europe would have had to remain im- 
passive whenever German interests were involved. 

It is this, then, which was the occasion of the 
war, and as it was the occasion, so the avowed 
object is that at the end Germany shall emerge 
with such increased strength that she can, with 
impunity, defy the united opinion of Europe. 

This object will be attained, of course, if Ger- 
many is victorious, but it will also be attained if, 
as a few writers in England and some among 
neutral countries suggest, the Allies acquiesce in 
a draw. 



12 THE ISSUE 

As to a complete victory of Germany, the 
results are so obvious that it is scarcely worth 
the labour to explain them. Moreover, a com- 
plete victory such as they anticipated is now 
clearly out of the question. None the less, it may 
be worth while to give in a few words what the 
result of this would have been. It is desirable 
to do so because it is perhaps not easy for many 
to realise what would have been meant by it. We 
are so accustomed to the Europe which we know, 
to the Europe which consists of a number of in- 
dependent states, differing, indeed, in power, but 
equal in dignity and each enjoying full and com- 
plete independence, that we are accustomed to 
think that this state of things, which has in fact 
existed for four hundred years, must continue to 
exist for all time. And yet the history of the 
past tells us that great and fundamental changes 
have occurred and may occur again in future. 

Now, a full German victory would undoubtedly 
have meant that in some form or other all the 
peoples inhabiting the central portion of the 
continent of Europe, the peoples we know as the 
Belgians, the Dutch, the Danes, the Poles, and 
the Swiss, would have been brought into the Ger- 
man system. It would not have been in the least 
necessary that they should have been incorpo- 
rated in the Empire. It is quite possible that 
they might have continued to exist as independ- 
ent autonomous states ruled over by families 
allied to the German princely houses ; this is the 



INTRODUCTION 13 

way in which, as a matter of fact, great empires 
have been formed, whether by the Romans or by 
the Enghsh in India. The student of ancient his- 
tory will remember for how long the republics 
of Greece and the dynasties of Asia continued to 
enjoy a nominal freedom, while they were in fact 
completely subject to the will of the Roman 
State, and we know how, at the present day, the 
Indian Princes are still recognised as sovereign 
rulers, though they are incapable of independent 
international action. Now a German victory 
would have meant that the central part of the 
continent of Europe, from the mouth of the 
Dniester to the English Channel, would have 
been brought into the same relation to Germany 
that the subject states were to Rome. There 
would have been no one who could have ventured 
to disobey the orders issued from Berlin. 

An empire of this kind is, of course, not com- 
plete in a day ; there would have been opposition, 
and we can be quite sure that a high-spirited 
race, such as the Magyars, would have been the 
first to rebel against a power which they them- 
selves had helped to establish; the final subjuga- 
tion of the Bohemians and the South Slavs would 
not have been completed without some further 
trouble; there would have been disturbances, 
perhaps serious disturbances, which could not 
have been put down without bloodshed. But 
these would not have been so much wars as what 
the Romans called ''tumultus"; they would 



14 THE ISSUE 

have been akin to the Indian Mutiny or the Irish 
Rebelhon of 1798, or the risings in Poland, and 
if there had been no foreign assistance to look to, 
however serious they were, the ultimate result 
would have been certain from the beginning. 
Nothing is rarer than a successful rebellion; 
revolutions seldom succeed unless they are helped 
by weakness in the governing authority, or by 
disaffection in the army. The history of the year 
1848 in Austria and Germany shows how help- 
less, even in the most favourable circumstances, 
is a popular rising, and if this was true even 
in the old days, how much more so will it be 
in the future, against a Government which has 
the sole control of all the modern machinery of 
warfare. 

Against a united Central Europe, the outlying 
states, France, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, would 
be helpless, and a Europe so organised would be 
able so to strengthen and defend the frontiers 
that an attack even from Russia would be cause 
for little apprehension. In a Europe so organ- 
ised wars would cease, and they would cease for 
the only reason which would ever stop them, the 
concentration of all military power in the hands 
of a single Government so powerful that her 
position is unassailable. Europe would have had 
the Pax Germanica. 

The difficulty of visualising the results of such 
a growth of German power is that we are likely 
to assume that men will continue to be governed 



INTRODUCTION 15 

by the beliefs and principles in which we our- 
selves have grown up. Among these the greatest 
is the pride in the freedom of one's country. 
But let us not deceive ourselves : had the Allies 
been defeated, had a Central Europe of this kind 
been established, this principle would not have 
survived ; it would have lingered for one or two 
generations. Independence would have been the 
dream of romantic men of letters; it would have 
been like the traditional republicanism under the 
Roman Empire, or like that of independence 
among the Greek States after having been con- 
quered by Macedonia; but as a real, active, 
strong, controlling political influence, it would 
have waned away and died, the results of the 
great war would be irremediable. King Albert 
and Joffre and the Serbian peasants would in the 
history of the world have taken their places side 
by side with the other heroes of lost causes, with 
Sartorius and Demosthenes and Hannibal and 
Vercingetorix and Cato and Llewellyn and 
Schamyl and Kruger. But the world would have 
gone on, and generations would have arisen to 
whom political freedom would have been but a 
memory and a dream. The Gauls and the Greeks 
and the Sicilians and the Jews were conquered 
by Rome, and the time came when their chains 
ceased to gall them and they ceased to regret the 
uncertain days of the past. They had order, 
comfort, security, they had no more war; they 
had civilisation and personal freedom and re- 



i6 THE ISSUE 

ligion, and they ceased to know that political 
freedom was no longer theirs. 

And so it might be again, and so it would have 
been had Germany been successful in the war. 

It is the attainment of this new Europe which 
is either expressly stated or implied in all the 
German suggestions for terms of peace analysed 
in this volume, whether given in the documents 
of the six associations, in the picture of Central 
Europe drawn for us by Naumann, or in the 
peace terms as stated by the Chancellor. For 
all have this in common, that they demand that 
Germany shall come out of the war so much 
stronger as to be able to maintain herself against 
the whole of Europe, and the Chancellor goes so 
far as to tell us in so many words that we must 
have a " new Europe, free from the trammels 
of the balance of power." 

As against this programme an Englishman 
will be satisfied with the reasons for which he 
entered on the war and the objects with which he 
is continuing it. For these are not the selfish and 
exclusive domination of a single state or nation, 
however eminent in the arts of peace and war, 
but the free and equal progress of all together in 
a generous rivalry. For he knows that diversity 
is the condition of life, and rivalry and conflict 
the condition of progress. We want and we will 
have, neither for ourselves nor for others, this 
partition of the world into aggressive and mili- 
tary world-states, least of all will we have Eu- 



INTRODUCTION 17 

rope, which is the home and still is the hope of 
civilisation and freedom, subjected to the deaden- 
ing rule of a single power. We need feel no 
chagrin that we are fighting, not to create some- 
thing new, but to maintain the old, for we know 
what the world owes to the secular rivalry and 
juxtaposition of these free European races, 
France and Spain and Holland and Italy and 
Flanders. 

For what is the meaning of the old Europe? 
At bottom it is the mutual respect for each other's 
individuality, the consciousness of the limits set 
by reciprocal obligations, the recognition that, if 
there are to be wars, their methods will be deter- 
mined by common agreement, and that the victor 
will, in the enforcement of his will, have to be 
bound by the general will of the political com- 
munity to which he belongs. This old Europe 
was founded on a conception of justice and reci- 
procity, and it is for this reason that Germany 
repudiates it, for she understands neither. Jus- 
tice and reciprocity — which are in fact identi- 
cal, for they mean that there shall be a measure 
to the exactions demanded by the strong from 
the weak, that as a state measures so it shall be 
meted to it again — they are the union of the 
weak against the strong, which is the only se- 
curity against the tyrant state. 

And when Bernard Shaw and Bethmann-Holl- 
weg and Bertrand Russell tell us that we must 
be done with the doctrine of the " Balance of 



i8 THE ISSUE 

Power," I can only marvel at the shallowness 
and superficiality of a criticism which does not 
trouble to look below the diplomatic formula for 
the permanent truth. A strange trio. The Ger- 
man I can understand; he, at least, would use 
his sophism as a bait to win the suffrages of the 
unwary, while Germany, as they sat talking and 
arguing, established the dominion which would 
indeed remove for all time the anarchy that they 
deplore and would bring peace to Europe, but 
would do so by subjecting all to a single will. 

So much for a German victory. But it will be 
said that no one now fears this. The German 
plans are already doomed to frustration and their 
hopes to disappointment. They have not suc- 
ceeded in conquering Europe and they will not. 
Everywhere they are on the defensive, and slowly 
they are being driven back. Why, then, the 
conclusion is drawn, not stop the war at once? 
So far as the German Government is concerned, 
there can be no doubt that they would gladly 
welcome any terms of peace which would enable 
them to come before their people without a 
crushing and irremediable defeat. Is it necessary 
to go on ? Admirable people in neutral countries, 
in America, in Holland and Scandinavia, are 
forming societies and publishing reviews with the 
object of contriving to end a war which, in their 
eyes, has ceased to have any definite object. 
They have found even in England some few who 
welcome these suggestions. It is said that 



INTRODUCTION 19 

Germany would be willing to evacuate Belgium 
and France, and if she has done this that is all 
that we have to demand. They talk of the 
" suicide of Europe," but they do not see that 
the end of Europe would come, not by the con- 
tinuance of the war, but by a cessation before 
the ends had been completely attained. 

The position is a plausible one, but let us look 
the facts clearly in the face. Supposing that 
peace were to be made now, — peace made be- 
fore the war had been fought to a conclusion, 
with Germany still untouched and the German 
armies unconquered, — what would be the re- 
sult? The German Nation, recognising that 
they had not attained the ends which were at- 
tributed to them, would persist in denying that 
they ever had had these before them at the be- 
ginning of the war. It would continue to be 
asserted in Germany for all time that the war 
was in truth a defensive warfare, forced upon 
Germany by a hostile coalition framed for the 
express purpose of destroying the Empire and 
annihilating their power. In this war they had 
been faced by a coalition as great or greater 
than the final coalition before which Napoleon 
fell. Confronted by Russia, France, and Eng- 
land, together with Italy, Belgium, Serbia, Mon- 
tenegro, and Rumania, they would boast, and 
justly boast, that they had held their own; Ger- 
many would have been unconquered and thereby 
shown to have been unconquerable. The Ger- 



20 THE ISSUE 

mans are more moved than we are by historical 
analogies; long before the war began they re- 
ferred, almost with pleasurable anticipation, to 
the prospect of a new Seven Years' War, in 
which the Germany of Bismarck would have to 
fight against the whole of Europe, as the Prussia 
of Frederick had had to do. They recalled also 
the fact that, though Frederick was again and 
again defeated, he was never conquered, and 
that the power of resistance which Prussia 
showed was the basis on which two generations 
later Prussian expansion was built up. So they 
anticipated it would be again. The great coali- 
tion would be formed, and it was formed; Ger- 
many would meet undaunted millions of enemies, 
and she has done so; against the bulwark of 
German breasts the rage of the enemy was help- 
less. Peace would be made and Germany would 
emerge from the conflict, whatever her losses 
might have been, infinitely greater and stronger 
than she had entered it. She would have with- 
stood the trial by fire and by sword, and with- 
stood it successfully. 

Germany would have withstood, and with- 
stood successfully, the greatest coalition ever 
formed. They would have known that when 
another war broke out, they would enter on it 
relatively stronger than they had been before, 
and their enemies weaker. For, let there be no 
mistake about it — if the present coalition does 
not achieve complete and absolute success, it will 



INTRODUCTION 21 

never again be established. Supposing it came 
about that the Germans evacuated Belgium and 
France, not because they had been driven out, 
but only as the result of negotiations, and per- 
haps in return for the restoration of some of the 
German colonies, does anyone believe that on a 
future similar occasion Belgium or France would 
be in a position to defy Germany? It would be 
impossible for them to do so, depending upon 
the support of England. It would be clearly 
written in history that, after England had put 
forward efforts, far greater than anyone had 
thought to be possible, she had still failed. Bel- 
gium would still, as before, be subject at any 
moment to be overrun by the German armies, 
and the experience she had once endured would 
inevitably deter her from incurring a similar 
risk again. Would Holland, with the example 
of Belgium before her, ever venture seriously to 
oppose German demands? Would Switzerland? 
Would Denmark? 

If peace were made by negotiation before 
Germany were defeated, — it matters not what 
the terms of peace were, — on the continent of 
Europe and within her own domain she would 
have gained the essential thing. Whatever were 
the fate of Austria, Germany would have an in- 
crease of her effective power, for no diplomatic 
arrangements could eventually prevent the prac- 
tical absorption of Austria in Germany. This 
alliance would continue, but does anyone believe 



22 THE ISSUE 

that the alHance of England and of France, of 
Italy and of Russia could permanently be con- 
tinued in the form of effective military and eco- 
nomic cooperation ? 

A drawn war would therefore be a victory for 
Germany. It would be a victory for Germany as 
complete as was the Second Punic War for 
Rome, and Germany in the future would be able 
to consolidate her position upon the Continent 
and prepare for the next war, which so many 
German writers are now anticipating, a war 
which would be directed against England, but 
one in which England would not be able to de- 
pend upon the help of her present allies. And 
the next war would be one in which, even though 
Holland and Belgium retained in theory their 
complete independence and self-determination, 
at the first onslaught they would be crumpled up 
before the German armies, and the attack upon 
England would be made, not only from the mouth 
of the Weser and the Elbe, but also from the 
Rhine and the Scheldt. 

An inconclusive peace would in fact imply 
two things, the increased power of Germany and 
the certainty of further war between Germany 
and Great Britain. But in addition to this, it 
would mean that after the war Germany would 
be even more convinced than she was before, of 
the essential value of that which we call '' mili- 
tarism " ; it would to them have been proved that 
it was by the army and the army alone that she 



INTRODUCTION 23 

had been saved, and therefore that it was on the 
army alone she must continue to depend for her 
existence and security in the future. In the days 
of peace which followed, she would continue as 
before to subordinate all her institutions to the 
perfecting of her military power. If, as is indeed 
the case, the ultimate object of the war is the 
destruction of militarism, this can only be at- 
tained by eradicating the spirit of militarism from 
the heart of the German people, and there is no 
other way in which this can be done than by the 
defeat of the German army. 

But let us suppose, on the other hand, that the 
war is carried on to its inevitable termination, 
that the resistance of the German armies is broken 
down and the spirit of the German people is 
broken by the effect of the blockade. A conclu- 
sion of this kind would make clear to the Ger- 
man Nation in the only way in which it could be 
made, that immeasurable ambition inevitably 
brings with it Nemesis. They would learn, what 
every other country in Europe has learnt, that it 
is impossible to defy with impunity the united 
voice of Europe. 

Men talk much of the terms of peace: it is 
not the terms of peace which are important; 
what is important is victory. Let those who 
doubt this study the settlement of 1815. Then, 
not only was France defeated, but the armies of 
the ^ victors twice in twelve months occupied 
Paris. The French learned, and they have never 



24 THE ISSUE 

forgotten, the lesson of the retribution which 
comes to a nation which would allow itself to be 
dazzled by the deeds of a Napoleon. But we 
must notice this also, that it was the very com- 
pleteness of the victory and the complete anni- 
hilation for the time of French military power 
which enabled the Allies, in the terms of peace, 
to leave France as powerful and as united as she 
had been twenty-five years ago before the begin- 
ning of the great war. 

It might be said by any German into whose 
hands this book came, that if you contend that a 
complete victory is necessary for the security of 
the Allies, Germany also may justly maintain 
that this is true for her also, and that she has to 
protect herself against the *' schemes of annihila- 
tion " with which she is threatened. In doing so, 
he would but be following the lead of the Chan- 
cellor and the other authorities quoted in this 
book, who again and again maintain that all that 
they demand is that which is necessary for the 
defence of their country against the threatened 
annihilation. 

To this we might well answer that it is not 
England which annihilates states or peoples; if 
we wish for illustrations of annihilation we must 
go to those parts of Europe in which not Eng- 
land, but the German States are supreme, to 
Poland and Bohemia, to Serbia and Belgium. 
Since modern Europe began there is no single 



INTRODUCTION 25 

state in Europe of which it can be said that it has 
been deprived of its natural territories, or that 
its internal government has been permanently 
warped by English supremacy. 

But apart from this, the answer of any Eng- 
lishman is simple when he hears the statement 
that we are threatening Germany with annihila- 
tion. There is one person, and one only in this 
country, who is qualified to express authorita- 
tively the objects with which England has 
entered the war, and those which she puts before 
herself for attainment in the case that victory 
attends her arms. Mr. Asquith has done this in 
words which it is scarcely necessary to repeat : 

We shall never sheathe the sword which we 
have not lightly drawn until Belgium recovers 
in full measure all and more than all that she 
has sacrificed, until France is adequately secured 
against the menace of aggression, until the rights 
of the smaller nationalities of Europe are placed 
upon an unassailable foundation, and until the 
military domination of Prussia is wholly and 
finally destroyed. 

And when the last sentence, as he himself 
points out, was first misquoted by the Chancellor 
and then its obvious meaning and intention dis- 
torted, he explains again the object in language 
which cannot be misinterpreted: 

Great Britain, and France also, entered the war 
not to strangle Germany, not to wipe her off the 



26 THE ISSUE 

map of Europe, not to destroy or mutilate her 
national life, certainly not to interfere with (to 
use the Chancellor's language) " the free exercise 
of her peaceful endeavours." . . . On several oc- 
casions in the last ten years Germany had given 
evidence of her intention to dictate to Europe 
under threat of war, and in violating the neutral- 
ity of Belgium she proved that she meant to es- 
tablish her ascendancy, even at the price of a 
universal war and of tearing up the basis of 
European policy as established by treaty. The 
purpose of the Allies in the war is to defeat that 
attempt, and thereby pave the way for an inter- 
national system, which will secure the principle of 
equal rights for all civilised states. 

As a result of the war we intend to establish 
the principle that international problems must 
be handled by free peoples, and that this settle- 
ment shall no longer be hampered and swayed by 
the overmastering dictation of a Government 
controlled by a military caste. That is what I 
mean by the destruction of the military domina- 
tion of Prussia: nothing more, but nothing less. 

The whole of this book is in fact a comment 
on and an expansion of these words, to which in- 
deed it might appear that nothing had to be 
added. 

It would be impertinent at the present time to 
enter on any discussion as to the details of the 
peace terms which would be demanded supposing 
the Allies were victorious in the war. And there 
is something profoundly undignified in declaring 



INTRODUCTION 27 

what we propose to do before we know whether 
we shall have the power to carry it out. It is, 
however, to be regretted that some French and 
English writers have given their support to plans 
which, if there were any chance of their being 
adopted by the Allied Governments, might justly 
be interpreted as bringing about the annihilation 
of Germany, the partition of the country, the 
overthrow of the Empire. For this reason it 
may be well, even during the stress of war, to 
suggest that whatever the result may be, it is 
essential to keep clearly in sight the cardinal 
principles of European policy. 

These are two. The first is that Europe is and 
should remain divided between independent na- 
tional states. The second that, subject to the 
condition that they do not threaten or interfere 
with the security of other states, each country 
should have full and complete control over its 
own internal affairs. 

From the first springs what I call the Magna 
Carta of Europe, the doctrine that the soil of 
Europe is not subject to conquest and annexation. 

There can be no permanent settlement of Euro- 
pean discord until this is generally accepted. 
The truth of it has been taught during the last 
hundred years of diplomacy. Since the time of 
the Reformation, nearly every war has been 
fought for the acquisition of territory. Wars 
will always continue so long as there is a prospect 
that success will enable the victor to extend the 



28 THE ISSUE 

bounds of his own country. Permanent concord 
can only come when it is recognised that every 
state has the right to be protected against dis- 
ruption by the cooperation of all the others. If 
at the end of this war the victory is used as vic- 
tory has so often been used in the past, then there 
evidently will be laid the foundations for a fur- 
ther struggle in the future. 

To this maxim, however, the Allies must be 
faithful in victory, as they would claim that it 
should be observed were they defeated. Just as 
we repudiate the claim of Germany to annex any 
part of the soil of France or Belgium on the right 
of conquest, so we cannot claim to annex or con- 
quer any part of the soil of Germany. However 
complete is the defeat of the German army, how- 
ever far the Allied troops penetrate on to Ger- 
man soil, the warnings of centuries must guard 
us against the irreparable error of attempting to 
separate from Germany any districts which are 
clearly and without dispute German. 

This maxim is easy to state in general, but the 
application is not so simple. It has to be deter- 
mined what are the natural frontiers of each 
nation. When that has been done they must be 
assigned and guaranteed by the general agree- 
ment of Europe. 

What, then, are the natural limits of Germany? 
What is German soil? Of France we may say 
with certainty that there is not perhaps a single 
village which would claim to be transferred to 



INTRODUCTION 29 

another state. The annexations of 1861 in Nice 
and in Savoy have been ratified in the only way 
in which annexation can be ratified, by the 
wilHng acquiescence of the inhabitants. We 
know what are the natural limits of Spain, and, 
as a result of the war, those of Italy will also 
have to be determined. But what about Ger- 
many? 

So much we may say, that nine-tenths of what 
is now included in the Empire is and will always 
remain German. Berlin and Cologne, Hamburg 
and Carlsruhe, Breslau and Aachen and Mainz, 
as to these there is no doubt. But there are 
border districts, Alsace and Lorraine, the north 
of Schleswig, parts of the Province of Posen, of 
which this cannot be said. Of these at least we 
may say that there is a question involved in them 
which may properly be brought before the Tri- 
bunal of Europe. Of these, but of no others. 

It is useful to recall the title by which Ger- 
many holds these doubtful districts. The north 
of Schleswig is held by direct and cynical viola- 
tion of the Treaty of Prague, to which Prussia 
had been herself a partner. It had been deter- 
mined by this that Schleswig should be divided, 
and that the inhabitants of the northern and 
border districts should be allowed themselves to 
determine by their votes whether they should be- 
come Prussian or Danish. This clause was in- 
serted in the treaty between Prussia and Austria 
by the desire of the Emperor Napoleon III, who 



30 THE ISSUE 

of course was the chief champion in Europe of 
the rights of the population to determine their 
own destiny. It was never carried out. The fall 
of the Empire, combined with the events of 1870 
and 1 871, deprived France both of the will and 
of the power to require its enforcement, and in 
1878, when the new alliance was formed between 
Germany and Austria, it was agreed that this 
clause should be allowed to lapse. It is clearly 
open to Europe to require that it should be re- 
vived, and against this no valid objection can be 
raised on the ground that to do so would be an 
injustice to Germany. 

Alsace and Lorraine are, of course, held in 
virtue of the Treaty of Frankfort. It is a treaty 
imposed on France by the power of the sword, 
and one in which Europe as a whole was not con- 
sulted. The Germans could claim on their side 
historical right ; they deliberately refrained from 
appealing for their sanction to the will of the 
population. With regard to one portion, Metz 
and districts in Lorraine, they were seized with a 
cynical disregard of everything but the right of 
the stronger and strategical reasons. The Treaty 
of Frankfort was imposed by the sword, and it 
can be dissolved by the same instrument by which 
it was created. But it is essential that the ultimate 
possession, whatever it may be, should be one de- 
termined not merelyibetween France and Germany, 
but agreed to and ratified by Europe as a whole. 

The question of the Polish provinces of 



INTRODUCTION 31 

Prussia is from the point of view of international 
relations more complicated. The present divi- 
sion of the country derives from the Treaty of 
Vienna, and received the formal and definite sanc- 
tion of the assembled powers of Europe. It is 
in fact the only part of those provisions of the 
Treaty of Vienna, which dealt with the countries 
which had been conquered by Napoleon, that has 
not yet been revised. The settlement for Ger- 
many and for Italy, for the Netherlands and for 
Norway and Sweden, has in the course of the 
last hundred years been overthrown. Norway, 
Belgium, Germany, Italy, have in the process of 
time each attained the position of a self-govern- 
ing and independent state. Poland alone re- 
mains; and on every ground of international 
convenience, of public policy and political equity, 
the time has come when that which has been done 
for Italy and for Germany herself should also be 
done for the Poles. The difficulties of the task 
will be enormous; but at this moment there is 
only one point on which it is necessary to insist, 
and that is that it is as absurd to speak of the 
l-estoration of Poland, even if this includes the 
separation of certain Polish-speaking districts 
from the German Empire, as the annihilation of 
Germany, as it would have been absurd to speak of 
the creation of a Kingdom of the Belgians as the 
annihilation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands 
or the emancipation of Lombardy and Venetia 
as the annihilation of the Austrian Empire. 



32 THE ISSUE 

The proposition that the nationality of these 
frontier and doubtful districts should at the end 
of this war come up for reconsideration is en- 
tirely consistent with the principle that the policy 
of Europe should be based on the mutual recog- 
nition among national states. Looking at the 
matter without prejudice and without passion, 
we may recognise that the justification for this is 
to be found, not so much in the historical ground 
on which they were acquired, but on the facts of 
the present moment. There have been many 
annexations in the last hundred years which will 
not and cannot be revoked. Lombardy was won 
for Italy by the power of the sword, and Holstein 
was separated from Denmark; if no one sug- 
gests that this verdict should be reversed, the 
reason is that it was one entirely in accordance 
with the wishes of the population. Ultimately 
the fault of Germany is not so much that she 
wrested Alsace from France in war, as that she 
has shown herself unable to win the allegiance 
of the inhabitants in peace. Over forty years 
have elapsed since the Treaty of Frankfort ; had 
the result been that the Alsatians had shown 
themselves willing and enthusiastic adherents of 
the German Empire, as the inhabitants of the 
other border districts, Metz and Lorraine, showed 
themselves loyal adherents of France after Louis 
XIV had forcibly annexed them to his crown, 
then there would have been no claim for Europe 
to interfere. It is notorious that this has not 



INTRODUCTION 33 

been the case. The inhabitants of the Province 
of Posen have been subject to the Kingdom of 
Prussia for a hundred years; there has been 
full opportunity to win over their affection and 
their loyalty; the opportunity has been lost. 

And if Germany — even the German Social- 
ists — with indignation declaim against any sug- 
gestion for severing from the Fatherland any 
portion of these border districts, and if they cry 
out about the annihilation of Germany, we are 
at least justified in recalling the profound disre- 
gard and contempt with which the protests of 
France and the remonstrances of Europe were 
met in 1864 and 1871. The cry against the 
annihilation of the Fatherland and the division 
of the country, so far as it applies to these dis- 
tricts, comes with an ill grace from a nation 
which has shown such complete indifference to 
similar appeals for mercy from others. 

As it is with the determination of German 
frontiers, so also with the internal arrangements 
and constitution of Germany. Suggestions are 
from time to time being made that the Allies 
ought to put before themselves the object of un- 
doing the work which was achieved in 1866 and 
in 1 87 1, by restoring those states which were 
annexed by Prussia and by revising the treaties 
under which Bavaria and the Southern States 
gave their adherence to the North German Fed- 
eration. These suggestions seem outside the 
scope of practical policy. It is indeed true that 



34 THE ISSUE 

no action of the Prussian Government was so 
counter to every principle of international moral- 
ity as the treatment of Hanover. This event, on 
which English writers have been strangely silent, 
forms a much securer basis for criticism of Prus- 
sian methods than did the treatment of Schles- 
wig-Holstein. But it is impossible to reverse the 
verdict of history, for the annexation has been 
condoned by the only people who have a right 
to be heard, and that is by the Hanoverians them- 
selves. The relations of Bavaria to Prussia have 
become a matter of internal German policy just 
as much as are those of Wales or Scotland to 
England. On this Europe has no claim to speak 
unless, indeed, there came at any time a cry for 
help from the Bavarians themselves. 

M. Yves Guyot has suggested in his book The 
Causes and Consequences of the War, and also in 
an article published in The Nineteenth Century 
and After, that when the time comes to discuss 
terms of peace ^* The seventeen members of the 
Bundesrat who represent Prussia could not be 
admitted [to the Peace Conference], for the fate 
of Prussia cannot be determined by herself; it 
must be settled by the conquerors." This frankly 
seems to me as absurd as it would be, were Ger- 
many to have won a complete victory in the war, 
that she should claim that the British Empire 
should be represented in the Peace Conference 
by Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the Dominions, 
but that no representatives from England should 



INTRODUCTION 35 

be admitted. On what grounds are the inhab- 
itants of Cologne and Diisseldorf, of Hesse- 
Kassel, Hanover and Schleswig-Holstein (I omit 
the old Prussian provinces) to be debarred from 
the opportunity of taking their part in the con- 
sultations on which the future welfare of Ger- 
many must depend? 

When M. Yves Guyot supports this and similar 
suggestions on criticisms made by Prince Biilow 
and others that the ancient spirit of particularism 
was not dead in Germany, he omits to take 
into consideration the result of a three years' war. 
Whatever may have been the case before (and 
as to this there can, I think, be no doubt that 
Prince Biilow and other German critics, to a great 
extent deliberately and for political purposes, 
overestimated the forces of disunion in Ger- 
many), there can be no doubt that now, by the 
mere fact of the common share which they have 
all taken in this great conflict, the German Na- 
tion has been welded into a complete and indis- 
soluble unity in the same way in which Prussia 
was so welded in the Seven Years' War. 

W^e have these two great principles, and they are 
principles to which the Allies have already given 
their adhesion. To them they must remain true. 

It may be objected, and it doubtless will be, 
that in this criticism of the suggestions of many 
eminent and patriotic writers, I am allowing 
myself to be influenced by the desire that there 
should be no humiliation for Germany. As to 



36 THE ISSUE 

this I can only say that the " humiliation of 
Germany " is not an object to be attained for its 
own sake, but only so far as it will lead to a better 
organisation of Europe in the future. Apart 
from and beyond this, the " humiliation of 
Germany " is certainly not worth the life of a 
single British soldier. It has often been pointed 
out that in these great matters of international 
relations, it is unwise to allow ourselves to be 
guided by sentiment rather than by reason and 
calculation. But there is a sentiment of hatred 
•as well as of respect and affection, and the indul- 
gence of the passion of hatred, however justified 
it may be, is, as a practical guide, just as danger- 
ous as that of sympathy. The " humiliation of 
Germany " would be necessarily and implicitly in- 
volved in the defeat of the German armies and the 
disappointment in the ambitions with which the 
war began; it would also arise from the con- 
sciousness of the loss of respect which had arisen 
from the manner in which the war has been con- 
ducted. Beyond this it does not appear to be 
a definite object of such a nature that a states- 
man would put it before himself for its own 
sake. 

I have throughout this book deliberately re- 
frained from referring to those questions involved 
in the methods by which the Germans have con- 
ducted the war. I have done so, not from any 
indifference, — for how could anyone be indif- 



INTRODUCTION 37 

ferent to acts which threaten to undermine the 
whole basis of modern European civiHsation? 
But it seems to me desirable to separate the con- 
sideration of this matter entirely from the purely 
political questions which are at stake, even though 
these other considerations are (as I think is 
still the case) more important. For the same 
reason I have not considered the claims which 
the Germans make that their culture and civilisa- 
tion is superior to that of other nations. I care 
not whether this claim is just or is foolish. What- 
ever view we might take of this matter, it cannot 
be contended that the superiority of modern Ger- 
man society is more superior to that of France 
and of England than was the civilisation of the 
France of Louis XIV to the Germany which 
emerged from the Thirty Years' War, or the 
political condition of England to that of the Con- 
tinent during the eighteenth century. But in 
modern Europe no temporary superiority pos- 
sessed for a few decades by a single state can be 
made the justification for permanent political 
ascendancy. No passage in Prince Billow's 
recent work is wiser or more remarkable than 
that in which he warns the Germans against too 
insistent encomiums of their own culture, and 
reminds them that the world fears a hegemony 
of culture even more than political supremacy. 

When will peace come? It will come when 
Germany is ready for it, and the time is approach- 



38 THE ISSUE 

ing. It will come when Germany has learnt the 
lesson of the war, when it has found, as every 
other nation has had to learn, that the voice of 
Europe cannot be defied with impunity. It will 
come when Germany is ready to repudiate the 
persons and the principles that made the war in- 
evitable, when the militarists and the chauvinists 
have become a despised and repudiated remnant, 
when the nation says : 

To you we listened, and you we have obeyed, 
to you we have sacrificed all that holds us to life, 
the lives of our sons and our husbands and our 
fathers, the ideals and beliefs of our ancestors, 
and our own better nature. You have offered us 
wealth and power and the kingdoms of this world, 
and we accepted your ofifer and your promise, 
and what have we ? For them we have bartered 
our all, and there is nothing in return but hunger 
and cold and nakedness, disease and death, ruin 
and destitution. Never in the history of the 
world has there been such unanimity in sacrifice ; 
before our deeds the armies of Napoleon may 
bow the head, and what have we won by it ? Two 
years ago the world was at our feet, to our cities 
men came from every land, and in every land 
our merchants were the most prosperous, our 
products were the most used, and it was our 
thoughts that men thought. And now travel 
round the globe, and we are the despised and 
hated of mankind, we have the curse of Cain on 
our brow, men shun us in the streets, and our 
language is ostracised. To you we owe it that 



INTRODUCTION 39 

the achievements of a century of national effort 
have been lost. 

Germany asks for security; she shall have it 
— precisely the same security that France and 
Russia and Italy and Holland enjoy; a security 
based partly on her own strength, but even more 
on the recognition of the laws and principles of 
Europe. Germany asks for guarantees ; she shall 
have them — precisely the same guarantees with 
which every other state has to be content; the 
guarantee that the tyrannical overgrowth of any 
one state or confederation of states will inevi- 
tably arouse in the rest of Europe a coalition be- 
fore which every nation, even the strongest, must 
bow. These laws of European life have been 
learnt in the course of centuries by all nations and 
accepted, and they have always been learnt in 
the same way, in the bitter school of experience 
and war. Germany is now learning the lesson, 
and the war will continue till the lesson has been 
completed; then it will stop. It will stop when 
it has been burnt into the heart of the whole na- 
tion so that it will never be forgotten. Men talk 
of the terms of peace. They matter little. With 
a Germany victorious no terms could secure the 
future of Europe, with a Germany defeated no 
artificial securities will be wanted, for there will 
be a stronger security in the consciousness of 
defeat. 



CHAPTER I 
TWO MANIFESTOES^ 

Once more the German Chancellor has made a 
speech in which he has for the fourth time re- 
peated in almost identical words his definition 
of the reasons which brought Germany into the 
war. Again we have had a debate in the Reichs- 
tag,^ in which the Chancellor and the party- 
leaders have repeated their catechism and have 
told us their story of a peaceful Germany occupied 
only in the work of quiet development at home, 
forced unwillingly into war and waging it with 
the single desire to obtain security against another 
attack, and once more we see them attempting 
to make England responsible for not only the 
beginning but the continuation of the war. 

It will, therefore, be worth while to examine 
what evidence we have as to the real aims which 
the " peaceful " German Nation have in fact put 
before themselves. This will put in a truer light 
the rhetoric of the Chancellor. I propose, there- 
fore, shortly to examine the most authentic 
expressions of German national feeling and to 
compare them with his speeches. In doing so, I 

* The Nineteenth Century and After, May, 1916. 
2 April 5, 1916. 



42 THE ISSUE 

shall confine myself to those who can speak with 
some authority, as, for instance, the official 
spokesmen of the parties, and shall neglect the 
overwhelming mass of material provided in news- 
papers and magazines, so far as it can be repre- 
sented to be merely the expression of private and 
individual opinion. 

First let us take two important documents 
issued in the spring and summer of last year. 
The one is a petition to the Chancellor, originally 
drawn up in the month of March, 191 5, and again 
presented to him in May by six economic associa- 
tions. These societies together represent all 
classes in the Empire with the exception of the 
working classes (whose interests are represented 
by the Social Democrats, the Christian Socialists, 
and the trade unions). They correspond to the 
union of all the hurgerliche, or non-socialistic 
parties in the Reichstag, of which we shall have 
to speak below. The associations themselves 
have very large numbers of members, and they 
have affiliated branches in all parts of the country. 
They are not confined to Prussia, they include 
the manufacturers of Saxony and the peasant 
proprietors of Wiirttemberg. They have all been 
founded at different times since the adoption 
of protection converted German politics into a 
struggle for supremacy between rival industrial 
and financial claims. One of their chief duties, 
as it is indeed the prime reason for their existence, 
is the defence of the economic interests of their 



TWO MANIFESTOES 43 

members in connection with the discussion of 
tariff and taxation; they have therefore a very 
active and real importance, they represent not 
so much opinions as interests, and for this reason 
their decisions carry weight with the Reichstag 
and the Government; a joint resolution by them 
cannot be dismissed as negligible, rather it is the 
weightiest form in which the wishes of the active 
and driving elements in the nation could be ex- 
pressed. Generally they are rivals and oppo- 
nents; this is probably the first time that they 
have all been found in agreement, but just for 
this reason their unanimity gives to their mani- 
festo a weight which can rarely belong to any 
similar expression of opinion/ 

The second document (which purports to 
emanate from "leaders of German thought") is a 
manifesto drawn up in June, 191 5, for the purpose 
of being presented to the Chancellor ; it was pub- 
lished in Berne in August. It is said to have re- 
ceived thirteen thousand signatures, but a list of 
the names is not attainable, nor is it clear when, if 
ever, it was in fact presented to the Chancellor. 
On all main points, though the wording is differ- 
ent, it is in substance identical with the petition of 
the economic associations, and the two clearly 
have a common intellectual origin, unless indeed 
(as is perhaps more probable) the ideas and de- 
mands that they incorporate are so generally dif- 

^ The two manifestoes are printed at length in the Appen- 
dixes. 



44 THE ISSUE 

fused among the more energetic and pushing 
circles that the similarity of language merely in- 
dicates how faithfully these documents reproduce 
the prevailing opinion. 

What v/e may call the preamble is common 
form, common to all discussions of peace in all 
nations. Both begin by protesting against the 
idea of an immature peace or an indecisive peace. 

The present war must be followed by an 
honourable peace, corresponding to the sacrifices 
made and containing in itself the guarantee of its 
endurance. 

It must never be forgotten that our enemies 
declare unceasingly that Germany must be an- 
nihilated and struck out from the list of great 
Powers. In view of such aspirations we find no 
protection in treaties which will be trampled 
underfoot at the opportune moment. Our only 
guarantee consists in an economic and military 
enfeeblement of our adversaries, such that, 
thanks to it, peace will be ensured for a period 
as long as can be taken into consideration. 

So far the economic associations. We have 
similar language from the " leaders of German 
thought " : 

We want to defend ourselves with all our 
might against the repetition of such an attack 
from the other side, against a whole succession 
of wars and against the possibility of our enemies 
again becoming strong. Moreover, we are deter- 
mined to establish ourselves so firmly, on such a 



TWO MANIFESTOES 45 

broad expanse of securely won homeland, that our 
independent existence is guaranteed for genera- 
tions to come. . . . Only one fear exists in all 
classes of our people, that mistaken ideas of 
atonement, or even nervous impatience, might 
lead to the conclusion of a premature peace which 
could never be lasting — it may be that, owing 
to the numerical superiority of our enemies, we 
cannot obtain everything we wish in order to 
secure our position as a nation, but the military 
results of this war obtained by such great sacri- 
fices must be utilised to the very utmost possible 
extent. 

We will pass over these preliminary remarks: 
this general conception of the situation — a Ger- 
many which is to defend itself against threats 
of annihilation, and does so by weakening its 
enemies to such an extent that it need fear no 
attack in future. We will turn for the moment 
to the particular manner in which these desirable 
results are to be obtained ; for what is remarkable 
in these documents is not the vague generalities 
with which they begin, but the precision with 
which they are worked out in detail. Though 
the wording is different the requests of the two 
are, in fact, identical. 

First let us take the " Leaders of Thought.'* 

I. France 

After being threatened by France for cen- 
turies, and after hearing the cry of vengeance 
from 181 5 till 1870, and from 1871 till 191 5, we 



46 THE ISSUE 

wish to have done with the French menace once 
for all. All classes of our people are imbued with 
this desire. There must, however, be no mis- 
placed attempts at reconciliation {Versohnungs- 
hemuhimgen) , which have always been opposed 
by France with the utmost fanaticism; and as 
regards this we would utter a most urgent warn- 
ing to Germans not to deceive themselves. Even 
after the terrible lesson of this unsuccessful war 
of vengeance France will still thirst for re- 
venge, in so far as her strength permits. For 
the sake of our own existence we must ruthlessly 
weaken her both politically and economically, 
and must improve our military and strategical 
position with regard to her. For this purpose, in 
our opinion, it is necessary radically to improve 
our whole western front from Bel fort to the 
coast. Part of the North French Channel coast 
we must acquire, if possible, in order to be strate- 
gically safer as regards England and to secure 
better access to the ocean. 

Special measures must be taken to avoid 
the German Empire in any way suffering inter- 
nally owing to this enlargement of its frontier 
and addition to its territory. In order not to 
have conditions such as those in Alsace-Lorraine, 
the most important business undertakings and 
estates must be transferred from anti-German 
ownership to German hands, France taking over 
and compensating the former owners. Such 
portion of the population as is taken over by us 
must be allowed absolutely no influence in the 
empire. 

Furthermore, it is necessary to impose a merci- 



TWO MANIFESTOES 47 

lessly high war indemnity (of which more here- 
after) upon France, and probably on her rather 
than on any other of our enemies, however ter- 
rible the financial losses she may have already 
suffered owing to her own folly and British self- 
seeking. We must also not forget that she has 
comparatively large colonial possessions, and that, 
should circumstances arise, England could hold 
on to these with impunity if we do not help our- 
selves to them. 

2. Belgium 

On Belgium, on the acquisition of which so 
much of the best German blood has been shed, 
we must keep firm hold, from the political, mili- 
tary and economic standpoints, despite any argu- 
ments which may be urged to the contrary. On 
no point are the masses more united, for without 
the slightest possible doubt they consider it a 
matter of honour to hold on to Belgium. 

From the political and military standpoints 
it is obvious that, were this not done, Belgium 
would be neither more nor less than a basis from 
which England could attack and most danger- 
ously menace Germany ; in short, a shield behind 
which our foes would again assemble against us. 
Economically, Belgium means a prodigious in- 
crease of power to us. 

In time also she may entail a considerable 
addition to our nation, if in course of time the 
Flemish element, which is so closely allied to us, 
becomes emancipated from the artificial grip of 
French culture and remembers its Teutonic 
affinities. 



48 THE ISSUE 

As to the problems which we shall have to 
solve once we possess Belgium, we would lay 
special stress on the inhabitants being allowed no 
political influence in the empire, and on the 
necessity for transferring from anti-German to 
German hands the leading business enterprises 
and properties in the districts to be ceded by 
France. 

But this is only one sector of the war: there 
must be a similar extension of territory in the 
East. " Russia is so rich in territory that she 
will be able to pay an indemnity in kind by giving 
lands, but lands without landlords." But let it 
not be thought that Germany is going to conclude 
the war without similar surrender by Great 
Britain in the colonial field. " We must sup- 
plant the world-trade of Great Britain." The 
alliance with Austria-Hungary and Turkey will 
open up the Balkans. " Thus we shall assure 
ourselves of the Persian Gulf against the preten- 
sions of Russia and Great Britain." To this is 
to be added a new African Empire : " In Africa 
we must reconstitute our Colonial Empire." 
" Central Africa is only a huge desert, which 
does not offer enough colonial wealth. We there- 
fore require other productive lands, and herein 
is to be found the importance of our alliance with 
Islam and the utility of our maritime outlet." 
" We must have Egypt — that is where England 
must be shaken. The Suez Canal route will then 
be free, and Turkey will regain her ancient right." 



TWO MANIFESTOES 49 

The petition of the economic associations is 
equally definite; they demand the incorporation 
with Germany of the whole of Belgium, the ad- 
jacent districts of France, including the coast as 
far as the mouth of the Somme — that is, the 
whole coast of the Channel with Calais and 
Boulogne, and the frontier borders of the Vosges, 
including Belfort and Verdun. In the East they 
ask for the annexation of at least part of the 
Baltic Provinces with the districts to the south 
of them — that is, at least a large portion of the 
Kingdom of Poland. If the demands in this 
direction are comparatively moderate, this is to 
be attributed to the fact that at the time the 
petitions were drawn up the German occupation 
of Poland was still incomplete. 

These are the demands, the demands as formu- 
lated a year ago. It will be well to keep them in 
mind when we read these self-complacent expla- 
nations of the Chancellor that Germany has in the 
war no object but security and self-defence, and 
that they have no lust for world-dominions. 

But those who wish to understand the motives 
and principles of these new statesmen should not 
omit to consider the exposition of the reasons for 
the annexations in Europe, and the choice of the 
territories to be taken. We feel that we have to 
do with modern men ; they are not romanticists, 
they do not trouble us with the historical argu- 
ments which were dear to the Germans of the 
old school, nor is there any suggestion that 



50 THE ISSUE 

this reunion may be justified on the ground of 
nationahty. 

The grounds are double : military and economic. 
As to the first, the military and strategic point: 
" Belgium must be annexed, as otherwise it would 
be a point d'appui for England against us " ; and 
as to France we have a sentence which alone 
sums up the whole of German military thought. 
" The lines of natural fortification of France, if 
they remained in the hands of the French, would 
constitute a permanent menace against our 
frontier." This is one of those pregnant state- 
ments the full signification of which grows upon 
one. The natural line of fortifications of France, 
is not that the defence of France, are not the 
fortifications situated on the natural soil of 
France, the barriers on the road into the country ? 
Are they not the lock to the door, the drawbridge 
and portcullis by which invaders, robbers, free- 
booters are excluded? But they are a per- 
manent menace to the German frontier; the 
security of other nations is a menace to Germany. 
What language is this, in what other country 
could it have been used? Let us be done with 
the childish talk of the " peaceful " German 
nation, let us recognise that here we have not 
from the mouth of the Government, not from 
Prussian militarism, but from the leaders in 
business and commerce, from those occupied 
with the peaceful arts of husbandry and manu- 
facture, the pure and unadulterated voice of the 



TWO MANIFESTOES 51 

tyrant State. Germany is to be protected by a 
triple wall which guards her against every assault, 
but the land of her neighbours is to lie open and 
unprotected to every assault of the robber bands. 

Germany is to have full security, a security 
to be attained by a strategic frontier. But what 
about France? Has not Metz for forty years 
been held by Germany in conscious and deliberate 
violation of every principle of nationality for no 
other reason than that it should be used as a 
sally-port, giving Germany the control of the 
passage of the Vosges, a military position held on 
the very soil of France itself, a pistol directed 
against Paris ? Germany is to have her strategic 
frontier, but is not Italy entitled also to ask 
for the same thing? In the final settlement of 
Europe is Austria to continue to hold the passage 
into Italy and from the summit of the Alps 
dominate the plains of Lombardy and Venetia? 

But these associations are not, of course, 
primarily responsible for military matters; on 
economic matters they speak with authority. 
Their work comes in the division of the spoil. 
The loot is not to be taken hastily and indis- 
criminately, they will choose what is valuable 
and leave the dross. They count up the spoil 
of France and Russia, as the mother of Sisera 
counted up the spoil from the slaughtered 
Israelites. " Have they not sped ? Have they 
not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or 
two; to Sisera a prey of divers colours of needle- 



52 THE ISSUE 

work, meet for the necks of them that take the 
spoil?" 

But there was no prey for Sisera and the 
Amalekites ; only the waters of the river Kishon 
and the lonely death in a desert tent. *' So let 
all thine enemies perish, O Lord," and then per- 
haps " the land will have rest forty years." 

Nothing is to be taken from France except for 
strategic reasons which has no economic value. 

What gives a nation wealth and power? 
Mineral resources — therefore the territory to be 
annexed from France must be chosen to include 
the mining district of Briey, and in addition the 
coal areas in the Departments of Le Nord and the 
Pas de Calais. 

This with the coast-line will enable full use 
to be made of the canals and enable the ports at 
the mouth of the canals to assume their full 
importance. The security of the German Empire 
in a future war imperiously calls for all the beds 
of minerals, including the fortresses of Longwy 
and of Verdun, without which these mineral beds 
cannot be protected. The possession of great 
quantities of coal, and especially of coal rich in 
bitumen, which abounds in the basin of the 
North of France, is, at least in as great measure 
as iron ore, decisive for the issue of the war. 
Belgium and the North of France together pro- 
duce more than forty millions of tons. 

Here we have the very essence of Realpolitik. 
It is naked and undisguised. You are rich and I 



TWO MANIFESTOES 53 

am strong, you have coal and iron and wealth 
which I should like to have. My armies are 
stronger than yours, and if I take these they will 
become even stronger and yours will become 
weaker. Therefore I will take them. 

In this way the industrial resources of the 
Empire will be increased. But experience has 
shown that the prosperity of a nation and its 
success in war require a certain equilibrium be- 
tween industry and agriculture. " The present 
economic structure of Germany has proved so 
favourable in the present war that the necessity 
for maintaining it . . . may well be considered 
as the general conviction of the people.'' And as 
we all know, the political equilibrium of Germany 
depends on a working compromise between the 
great industrialists and what we call the landed 
interest. In England we have neglected this, 
industrial interests look on the landed classes 
rather as a hostile interest to be kept down; the 
Germans are wiser. And so, as the two industrial 
societies have chosen their share in the plunder, 
the agriculturists must be treated with no less 
generosity. Rivals at home, the two interests 
coalesce in plundering other nations. The very- 
fact that the best mining districts are taken from 
France is a reason why extensive agriculturist 
districts should be taken from Russia. 

And again Germany wants men. 

If Germany failed to annex agriculturist ter- 
ritories on our eastern frontier, we should be 



54 THE ISSUE 

restricting the possibility of increasing by a suf- 
ficient growth of the population of Germany her 
military power as against Russia. . . . National 
popular vigour depends on a vigorous agriculture, 
and it is necessary to ensure the growth of our 
population and to strengthen by that very means 
our military power. 

A mere Englishman or Frenchman might here 
make objection that if districts already occupied 
by alien and probably hostile races are annexed 
they will not really increase German power, but 
prove a source of weakness. But German science 
neglects nothing, and he will find this objection 
anticipated. It is an obvious danger to be 
removed. This is easy enough: easy, at least, 
to those who have freed their minds from '' senti- 
ment.'* The present owners will be expropri- 
ated and German settlers placed on the land 
in their place. " We must make possible a 
German agrarian colonisation on a large scale, 
and the repatriation upon German territory of 
German peasants living abroad, and especially 
in Russia." 

These territorial increases assume- that the 
population of the annexed territories will not be 
able to obtain a political influence upon the 
destinies of the German Empire, and that all 
the sources of economic power in these territories, 
including properties great and small, will pass 
into German hands. 



TWO MANIFESTOES 55 

This is at least simple; the French and Rus- 
sians will be turned out, and their place will be 
taken by Germans. The mistake made in dealing 
with Alsace-Lorraine will not be repeated. Lille 
and Warsaw will not only be annexed by Ger- 
many, they will become German. Could anything 
be more satisfactory? 

There will be no difficulty in doing this ; the cost 
of the expropriation will be borne by France and 
by Russia. It will be part of the war indemnity. 

Do not let it be thought that it is the associa- 
tions alone who advocate these measures. They 
receive the full approval of the " leaders of 
thought." " In order not to have conditions such 
as those in Alsace-Lorraine the most important 
business undertakings and estates must be trans- 
ferred from anti-German ownership to German 
hands, France taking over and compensating 
the former owners." As in France, so also in 
Russia. 

It will be convenient to consider for a moment 
this last demand which is common to the two 
documents. Here we have deliberately put 
forward by large numbers of highly influential 
Germans the request, not only for annexation 
of the conquered territory, but annexation in such 
a form that the inhabitants of the conquered pro- 
vinces are to be deprived of all political rights and 
disappropriated of their possessions, which are 
to be transferred to German hands. In a word, 
parts of Europe are to be treated as we should 



56 THE ISSUE 

never treat conquered territories of Africa ; once 
more the condition of subjects deprived of the 
rights of citizenship, a condition which we 
thought had been finally abolished from Western 
Europe, is to be reestablished. Those who have 
been citizens of the two freest countries in Europe 
are to become Helots and outlanders. In their 
own homes these French, these Belgian, these 
Polish subjects are to become as Rayahs or 
Fellaheen of the Turkish Empire. They are to 
be hewers of wood and drawers of water for their 
German lords. Two years ago it would, I think, 
have been considered impossible that a sugges- 
tion of this kind for the treatment of any district 
in Western Europe should have been made by 
any civilised individual, but in truth the doctrine 
of German Kultur drags us into strange places. 

Many and strange indeed are the ideas that 
spring up like weeds in the brains of Germany. 
Turning over the pages of the Turmer, I find an 
unknown writer who tells us that " Germans 
abroad must be collected together." " As many 
as possible of them must be rescued from their 
present position." This must be done by far- 
reaching transplantation. 

In a time of the mass movement of the armies, 
we must not shrink from mass movements of the 
population. William the Second must carry out 
on a great scale a policy of transplanting adopted 
by the Assyrian and Babylonian kings. Why 
not, for instance, drive out the Walloons of 



TWO MANIFESTOES 57 

Belg-ium to France, Algeria, Morocco, Brazil, and 
occupy the country with Germans? 

At the beginning of the war I ventured to 
compare the spirit of modern Germany with that 
of the Assyrian kings — it seemed a bold com- 
parison, but I now find that it was even truer 
than I thought.^ My experience is that no sug- 
gestion can be made so contrary to right reason 
and to European tradition but it will soon be 
outdone by some German writer. 

It may be said that we need not trouble about 
these wild thoughts, they will have no effect 
in practice. We cannot content ourselves with 
this. After all the fundamental conception of 
the Germans as a superior race, annexing and 
if necessary dispensing the lands of inferior 
peoples, is in complete accord with the history 
of the policy of Prussia. It is not merely the 
chimera of a few exaggerated theorists. It has 
behind it practical experience, and is merely the 
reproduction, on a larger scale and under what 
would be more favourable conditions, of what the 
Prussian Government have already begun. The 
proposed annexations in France and Belgium are 
merely a repetition on a larger scale of what has 
already been done in Schleswig and in Alsace- 
Lorraine. And the method of expropriation is 
the principle on which the Polish districts of 
Prussia have in fact been governed for the last 

^ England, Germany, and Europe. Macmillan. 



58 THE ISSUE 

twenty years — that the Poles should become 
Germans, that the German language should be 
substituted for Polish, and that the Polish landed 
proprietors should be expropriated and make 
room for Germans. The only difference is that, 
while hitherto it has been necessary to do this 
at the expense of the Prussian Government, the 
fact that there has been a war would enable the 
same ends to be carried out at the expense of 
others, and with far better prospects of success.^ 
We may even go further and recognise that 
under modern conditions action of this kind is 
the necessary result of annexation. We must not 
look on these suggestions as the wild vagaries of 
theorists. They are based on the recognition of 
a practical truth. The modern state, depending 
as it does on universal suffrage and universal 
military service, requires a certain amount of 
homogeneity of feeling among the inhabitants. 
Its close texture will not admit the presence of 
large districts the people of which revolt from the 
fundamental principle on which the state is es- 
tablished. You cannot have in a national state 
such as France or Germany provinces which deny 
assent to the nationality, refuse so far as they 
can to accept the obligations which the state 
requires from all its members, and use their 
political power not to strengthen but to destroy 
it. This the Germans have learnt from the pre- 

1 The reader will find a considered defence of this policy in 
Billow's Imperial Germany. 



TWO MANIFESTOES 59 

sence in the Reichstag of the Reichsfeindliche 
parties, the Poles, the Danes, the Alsatians. In 
an assembly summoned to assist in the govern- 
ment of the Empire there is no place for those 
whose only wish is either to destroy it or at least 
to separate from it. Especially dangerous is the 
presence of this element in the State when the 
revolting provinces are situated on the very 
frontiers of the country immediately contiguous 
to its permanent enemies. Even now the pre- 
sence of these alien enemies has been an embar- 
rassment; were the numbers increased it would 
be a serious danger. 

If, then, there is to be annexation, it must be 
followed by some such measure. These writers, 
starting from the assumption that everything 
that is for the strength of Germany must be 
adopted, do not shrink from the conclusion that 
annexation must be accompanied by that which 
they rightly see is its logical conclusion. To this 
end all must be sacrificed; justice, honour, hu- 
manity are dismissed as mere sentiment. But 
we will be thankful to them for pointing out to 
us the dilemma, and we shall adopt the conclusion 
that as this is the logical result of any annexation, 
then the policy of annexation is ipso facto con- 
demned not only for Germany, but for every other 
civilised state, and boldly accept what is the 
Magna Carta of our times — that the soil of 
Western Europe is not and cannot be the subject 
of annexation and conquest. 



6o THE ISSUE 

And what, if the suggestions of the petition 
were carried out, would be the fate of the French- 
men who still are to belong to France ? Belgians 
there will be no more. 

Before this new Germany, wnth its 80,000,000 
inhabitants, this Germany which rules from the 
mouth of the Somme to the Gap of Belfort, this 
Germany, whose frontier is brought within fifty 
miles of Paris, what will be the position of 
France, a France deprived of the great manufac- 
turing districts of the North? It will have but a 
precarious independence, enjoyed by the favour 
of Germany, an independence such as that which 
Austria would have deigned to allow to Serbia, 
or Napoleon to Prussia. 

It will doubtless be said: Why trouble about 
these manifestoes? After all, they do not repre- 
sent the opinion of the whole of Germany, and, 
even if they did when they were drafted represent 
what many thought, much has happened since 
then; opinion is changing, the voice of reason 
and moderation has been making itself heard. 
This is true; men like Professor Delbrueck and 
Harden, not to speak of the writers in papers 
such as Die Hilfe, expressly or by implication, do 
what they can to stem the effect of the more 
extreme writers, and a careful reading of some of 
the more important daily papers, such as the 
Berliner Tageblatt and the Frankfurter Zeitnng, 
shows a growing desire for reconciliation and 
peace, if not with England, at least with France. 



TWO MANIFESTOES 6i 

But this is just the reason why it is necessary to 
keep these earher expressions in mind. There 
has been a change, the change is constantly work- 
ing, the time will come when it is completed. 
But the cause of the change has been the war, 
and it is this change which is the best justification 
for the continuance of the war, for the work is 
not yet finished. Had Germany secured, as she 
expected, a speedy and complete victory, it is by 
the men whose words I have quoted that the 
policy of the country would have been decided; 
their demands would, if not completely at least 
to a large extent, have been carried out. The 
war will not have done its work till the very con- 
ception of such schemes has been finally and 
irrevocably eliminated from the German mind. 
When this has been done, then Germany will 
once more be ready to take her place as an equal 
member of the European federation.^ 

Both the petition and the manifesto were sup- 
pressed by the German Government, no discus- 
sion of them was permitted, and we do not know 
to what extent they would have commanded the 
support of the nation. The very fact of the peti- 
tion being made was indeed most inconvenient to 
the Government. What they show is the spirit 
and the conception that were moving in the heart 
of the German Nation ; they show what Europe 
would have had to face had Germany come trium- 

1 As is pointed out below these proposals have received the 
express approval of Premier Bulow, see Chap. IV. 



63 THE ISSUE 

phant out of the war. They were suppressed, for 
the result was doubtful; we can be sure that 
were victory secured these ideals would have 
been pressed on the Government with great force, 
and would have found expression in the Reichstag 
and in public agitation. Against a condition 
such as this, so far as it prevails, there is one 
remedy only, war and defeat. With victory it 
would thrive, and had Germany been victor, it 
would have spread throughout the nation; with 
every week that the war continues this spirit will 
weaken and decay, and by defeat it would be 
destroyed. 

But it must not be thought that these docu- 
ments are in contradiction to the general ten- 
dency of German thought. If we leave out the 
Assyrian element the essence of the whole is that 
the result of the war must be an alteration in the 
political condition and in the map of Europe, 
the object of which will be to give to Germany 
that complete security which can only be attained 
by undisputed ascendancy. The essential thing 
is that there are to be large annexations which 
will completely guarantee the territory of Ger- 
many from attack, and thereby leave all other 
countries open and defenceless to attack from 
Germany. An enlarged empire, an empire so 
strong that no one alone or in coalition will be 
able to attack it — that is the avowed aim of 
every responsible political leader or party. 



CHAPTER II 
THE PARTY LEADERS ^ 

It is well known that any discussion of the end 
of the war is forbidden; none the less all the 
German political parties have found an oppor- 
tunity, both by their spokesmen in the Reichstag 
and by formal resolutions of their committees, to 
give their opinion on these matters. With the 
one exception of the Socialists there is in these 
opinions an absolute identity, and in all essentials 
they are at one with the two manifestoes that we 
have been considering. What they require is 
terms of peace which shall give to Germany the 
opportunity for free development of her power, 
and as a means to this they demand such exten- 
sion of territory as may be necessary for this 
purpose. They differ from the manifestoes only 
in this, that they do not attempt to determine 
precisely how great the extension shall be. 

It will be interesting to quote some of these 
dicta. And first let us put that of the second 
man in the Empire, the King of Bavaria : 

The heavy sacrifices which the whole German 
people has made, require that we shall not con- 

1 Nineteenth Century and After, May, 1916. 



64 THE ISSUE 

elude peace until the enemy has been over- 
thrown, and we get a peace which, for as long as 
we can foresee, ensures the free continuance of 
every kind of development of the whole people, 
till we have frontiers which will take away from 
our opponents the desire of falling on us again and 
calling upon enemy after enemy against us.^ 

The German parties fall into three groups: 
first, the Conservatives and National Liberals, 
which together form the coalition on which the 
Government depends. Side by side with them 
are the two great independent parties, the Centre 
and the Socialists. The opinion, as to peace, of 
the government parties is unanimous. First we 
have the Conservatives. The committee have 
published their opinion; after speaking of the 
necessity for overthrowing definitely the gigantic 
power of the Russians and securing national 
security in the East ; after pointing out that the 
overthrow of England must always be kept in 
the first rank as the most important object of 
the war, it continues : 

With the whole Conservative Party and with 
the whole German people, the committee is at 
one in the resolution not to shrink from any 
sacrifice which is necessary to carry on the war 
to a permanent and honourable peace which will 
secure the foundations for the future of Germany. 

1 These quotations are taken from a useful collection entitled 
Deutsche Kriegszielkundgebungen, by Heinrich Michaelsen, Verlag 
Edwin Runge, Berlin Lichterfelde. 



THE PARTY LEADERS 65 

It will as a matter of course support all the annex- 
ations which are necessary for this purpose. 

On December 5 and 6, 191 5, there was a com- 
mon meeting of the Conservative and the Free 
Conservative Parties; they came to the follow- 
ing resolution : 

. . . The German people is strongly and unani- 
mously convinced that the great sacrifices in life 
and wealth which it offers and will continue to 
offer willingly and with enthusiasm must not be 
in vain. They demand, as the aim of peace, a 
Germany strengthened in its whole position, 
enlarged beyond its present borders by retaining 
the greatest amount of those territories which are 
now occupied. These frontiers must be secured 
from every attack on East and West, freedom on 
the sea must be unconditionally guaranteed, and 
a strengthening of our national power must be 
secured which corresponds to our great stakes. 

The National Liberals hold an important part 
in German politics; they are connected by an 
unbroken historical lineage with the great party 
which before 1870 put themselves at the head of 
the national movement for a united Germany; 
they are the party which have above all others 
given dignity and credit to parliamentary dis- 
cussions. Their leader, Herr Bassermann, has on 
several occasions explained the views of the party 
on peace. In July, 191 5, he tells us: 



66 THE ISSUE 

As at the front our brave warriors persevere 
in the heat of the conflict and will hear of no peace 
which does not bring us the frontiers in which we 
find security against future wars, those who re- 
main at home stand firmly and decisively for an 
energetic policy. . . . There can be no talk of a 
policy which thinks of a restoration of the condi- 
tion before the war — the victor who in millions 
of his best sons stakes his life for the fatherland 
will bring back from the war a greater and 
stronger Empire, a security in the future against 
a new criminal war. 

In an article in the Deutsche Kurier of Au- 
gust 4, 1915, he speaks of the heroic nation: 

Filled with the firm will for power for a 
greater and stronger Germany, we do not aim at 
Utopias in the Black Continent; it is not there 
that our future lies. So long as England can 
close the realm of proud Amphitrite all posses- 
sions in other continents are insecure. It is on 
the soil of Europe which has been manured by 
blood that there is growing up for us a German 
crop, and we will still the tears of those who have 
given their dear ones if we can say to them: 
Thy son, thy husband has fallen for this greater 
and stronger Germany — bloody sacrifices have 
been offered, and more will fall ; they must pro- 
vide the foundation for a territorial expansion 
of our country, for boundaries in the East and 
West which wilt secure us peace for a generation. 

In the Reichstag, in the debate of August 20, 
19 1 6, he spoke in similar language of the firm 



THE PARTY LEADERS 67 

determination to secure frontiers in East and 
West which would forbid the repetition of so 
terrible a war. 

The central committee of the party has ex- 
pressly approved of his language, and in a meet- 
ing of August 15 defined the objects of the war 
as follows: 

The result of the present war can only be a 
peace which, by enlarging our frontiers on the 
East and West and overseas, gives us military, 
political, and industrial security against new 
attacks, and recompenses the immense sacrifices 
which the German people has made and is deter- 
mined to continue until a victorious end. 

The Freisinnige, or Progressive People's Party, 
are the small remnants of the once powerful party 
which upheld in Germany the cause of liberalism 
and free trade. On this matter they do not 
differ from those to whom they are generally 
opposed. Their committee drew up a resolu- 
tion on December 4 and 5, 191 5. In this they 
state : 

The committee is convinced that the condi- 
tions of peace must not offer to the German 
Empire, as our opponents still continue to write, 
at best restoration of the conditions before the 
war, but rather permanent protection against 
foreign attacks and a permanent increase of 
power, of wealth, and, so far as its security seems 
to reqviire, also of territory. 



68 THE ISSUE 

The Centre party are more cautious. They 
do not definitely commit themselves to the re- 
quirement of territorial annexation. In their 
resolution of October 24, 1915, they say: 

The external conditions for a prosperous de- 
velopment of the German people are, as the 
experiences of the v^ar fairly show, increased 
security against the military and industrial plans 
of our enemy for our annihilation. The terrible 
sacrifices which the country has laid upon our 
people call for a strengthened protection of our 
land in East and West, which will take from our 
enemies the wish to fall upon us again and which 
will permanently secure the industrial provision 
for our growing population. To this increased 
security of our Empire there must be added a 
similar security for our allied States. 

If they have not in their own party meeting 
committed themselves to the policy of annexa- 
tion, they joined in the common declaration made 
by all the parties, except the Social Democrats, 
in the great sitting of December 9, and it will be 
noticed that the spokesman of this joint mani- 
festation was Dr. Spahn, the leader of the Centre. 
The declaration ends as follows: 

We await in full unity, with quiet resolution, 
and, let me add, in trust in God the hour which 
makes possible peace negotiations, in which the 
military, industrial, and political interest of Ger- 
many must be completely and permanently se- 



THE PARTY LEADERS 69 

cured, including those extensions of territory 
which are necessary for this purpose. 

We have, then, the unanimous declaration of 
the parties in favour of annexations, the object of 
which is what they call the security, what we 
call the domination of Germany ; for for them no 
security is sufficient which leaves any one strong 
enough to oppose their will. But these annexa- 
tions must be the forcible conquest of men of 
alien race, against their will. Where in Europe 
is there a single village that desires to be annexed 
to Germany? The end of the war is, then, ac- 
cording to these men, to be a simple reversion 
to the old law of conquest, a return to the days 
when each state held its lands, as it had won 
them, by the sword, and the politics of Europe 
was an endless scheming and struggle for terri- 
tory ; for that which is won by the sword may be 
lost by the sword. 

This solution is to make this war but one in an 
endless chain of wars, but it is the one which the 
responsible leaders are trying to force upon the 
Government. 

What credit, then, are we to give to the Chan- 
cellor when in his latest speech (April 5, 19 16) 
he says : 

What is it that gives us strength to continue 
fighting? Who can seriously believe that it is 
lust for an extension of our frontiers that inspires 
our storming columns before Verdun, and makes 



70 THE ISSUE 

them accomplish ever more heroic deeds? It is 
not for a piece of foreign territory that Germany's 
sons are bleeding and dying. 

The united voices of the responsible and elected 
representatives of the people give him the lie. 
It is for an extension of territory that they are 
fighting; it is by the attainment of this that the 
tears of the mothers are to be stilled. If this is 
not won, the sacrifices will have been in vain. 

We will still the tears of those who have given 
their dear ones if we can say to them: Thy son, 
thy husband, has fallen for a greater and stronger 
Germany; bloody sacrifices have been offered, 
and more will fall ; they must provide the foun- 
dation for a territorial extension of our country. 

And let it not be thought that time has made 
any real change in their desires. The insistence 
on annexation remains to-day. In the last 
debate the Chancellor, as always, avoided the 
word " annexation." His references to Belgium 
were not explicit enough ; all that he spoke of was 
the protection of the Flemings. It might seem 
that he was hedging. His words did not satisfy 
the assembly, and he had to be corrected. Once 
more Dr. Spahn spoke as the mouthpiece of his 
party, and this time he insisted that, at any rate 
for Belgium, the proposals of the Chancellor were 
insufficient. 



THE PARTY LEADERS 71 

Peace aims must be power aims. The war 
must end with a tangible result. Towards the 
East the Chancellor has held one out to us; 
towards the West he has spoken more guardedly. 
In respect to Belgium he has said that we must 
see to it that it shall no longer be an advanced 
post of England, but — as I conceive necessarily 
follows — pass militarily, politically, economically 
into our hands. 

It is to be noted that the Chancellor had avoided 
saying this. Dr. Spahn gives to his words a force 
which they did not really have. It is not an 
explanation, but a correction ; the German " doss 
Belgien in unsere Hdnde kommt" can have no 
meaning but annexation. This is shown by the 
continuation : 

This leaves the political internal organisation of 
the country untouched. This will be decided by 
peace when it is really made. We wished for no 
war of conquest, — that I repeat with the Chan- 
cellor, — but now we must rectify our frontiers in 
our own interests. Our enemies must not remain 
untouched in their political and military nucleus. 

What the Chancellor really meant is discussed 
in Chapter III. He had obviously carefully 
chosen his words so as to leave the way open for 
a settlement which would secure full German 
control without a formal annexation. This was 
not enough for the representatives of the German 
nation or the Centre Party. They would not be 



72 THE ISSUE 

put off with anything short of an explicit declara- 
tion that Belgium was to become German. 

It is interesting to quote the comment of the 
Kblnische Volkszeitung, one of the most impor- 
tant Catholic papers in Germany : 

Unfortunately the war aim, which the Chan- 
cellor sketched for the West, is not so clearly 
defined [as that for the East]. This the leader 
of the Centre, Spahn, clearly showed. It is true 
that the Chancellor promised that the occupied 
countries in the West, in which the blood of the 
people had flowed, should not be given up without 
a complete security for the future. It is true that 
the Chancellor again announced real guarantees 
that Belgium should not become an English- 
French vassal-state, and should not be used as 
a military and industrial bulwark built out against 
Germany. The Flemish race, which has so long 
been kept down, must not again be given over to 
Frenchification. But the stormy applause and 
the clapping, with which his announcement of 
war aims in the East was followed, could not 
accompany these words of the Chancellor, be- 
cause they sounded indefinite. It is to be wished 
that the Chancellor had spoken with equal deci- 
sion and firmness about the war aims in the West, 
as Spahn did amid the applause of the House. 

It is the old story — they will be satisfied with 
nothing less than that Belgium should come into 
the absolute possession and control of Germany. 
The rest of the debate illustrated this. The 



THE PARTY LEADERS 73 

Socialist speaker protested against Dr. Spahn's 
words, for he desired no violence to other na- 
tions. The other speakers supported Dr. Spahn ; 
the National Liberal said that, as to Belgium, 
" not only must the siatits quo ante be ex- 
cluded, but the military, political, and economic 
supremacy of Germany must be secured." The 
Conservative speaker definitely expressed his 
disagreement with the Socialists on this point: 
" treaties would not be sufficient ; they must keep 
a firm hold on the country." 

Now, as at the beginning of the war, the aims 
of the nation as expressed by the politicians are 
the extension of the German Empire by the an- 
nexation to it, or the permanent subjugation, of 
at least Belgium and parts of Poland. 

And even if there is, as seems to be the case, 
a growing tendency to moderation in the state- 
ment of the claim, this is due solely to the events 
on the field of battle. As the difficulties of 
achievement become more obvious the note be- 
comes lower. Once again we see the effect of the 
war. But let there be any weakness in the con- 
duct of the war, let the French relax their almost 
superhuman efforts, let the English give signs of 
disunion, let the Russians hold out hopes of some 
accommodation, and immediately the strident note 
would once more be heard ; and we cannot doubt 
that it would have been heard had the attack 
on Verdun met with the success that was hoped 
from it. 



CHAPTER III 

THE GERMAN CHANCELLOR AND 
PEACE ^ 



During the last few months the world has been 
the witness of a new phenomenon — the German 
Chancellor as the emissary and apostle of peace. 
If we are to believe his words there is nothing 
which he and the German Government, of which 
he is, if not the guide and leader, at least the 
figure-head and mouthpiece, have so much at 
heart as the peace of Europe and the freedom of 
the smaller nations. He would persuade the 
world that if the war continues it is not the 
fault of Germany but of England, that his own 
country, now as always the model of reason and 
justice, does not stand in the way of a speedy and 
permanent peace. 

Those who have followed his previous attempts 
to show that it was not Germany but England 
that was responsible for the outbreak of the war 
will not expect that he will have much greater 
success in dealing with the conclusion of it. His 
task is indeed as difficult in the one case as 

* The Nineteenth Century and After, July, 19 16. 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 75 

in the other, for there can be little doubt that 
in both he is the advocate of a policy and actions 
of which he disapproves, and has to defend be- 
fore the public that which he opposed in the coun- 
cil chamber; and one often feels that the very- 
violence and noisiness of his protestations are 
evidence of the conscious weakness of his cause. 
His attempts to throw the guilt on England need 
not trouble us. England has broad shoulders, 
and the experience of many centuries of history, 
an experience which Germany has not enjoyed, 
has made the nation indifferent to the misrepre- 
sentations and calumnies which are the inevitable 
accompaniment of a prolonged and bitter war. 
The mind of the nation has long been made up. 
We know that the present is the time not for 
words but for deeds, and that it is by deeds, not 
by words, that peace alone can be achieved. 
England will go on her way and continue the 
work that she has undertaken, not from any love 
of it, but because no other course is possible. 

But none the less it is worth while to inquire 
what amount of truth underlies the campaign of 
assurances and protestations that the Chancellor 
has undertaken, for, if not here, there are some 
in other countries who are inclined to be im- 
pressed, and the constant reiteration of state- 
ments, however remote from the truth, never 
fails to have some effect on opinion. 

What are the claims that he makes? We will 
give them in his own words : 



76 THE ISSUE 

Twice within the last few months Germany 
has announced before the world her readiness to 
make peace on a basis safeguarding her vital 
interests, thus indicating that it is not Germany's 
fault if peace is still withheld from the nations of 
Europe. 

These words are taken from Herr von Jagow's 
despatch to the German Ambassador in America. 
They are corroborated by an interview of the 
Chancellor with the Chicago journalists on 
May 23 : 

Twice, publicly, I stated openly that Ger- 
many was ready to negotiate on a basis which 
would protect her against future attacks by a 
coalition and secure the peace of Europe. 

The two occasions referred to are, of course, 
the Chancellor's speeches in the Reichstag in 
December and April last. We had all read these 
speeches and considered their bearing on the 
question of peace. It was not easy to know how 
much importance we should attach to them. We 
were not disposed to criticise them very minutely ; 
we remembered the difficulties with which he 
was confronted. He was addressing an assembly 
of his own people, and on these occasions it 
seemed probable that it was the immediate rather 
than the remoter audience which he had in mind. 
His own countrymen might well be to him of 
greater importance than the outer world. His 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 77 

first duty must be to preserve unity at home. It 
was not an easy one. 

He was confronted by two great masses of 
opinion supremely antipathetic to one another 
and each very suspicious of him and the Govern- 
ment. He could not risk offending either, and if 
possible he must aim at maintaining the tem- 
porary but uncertain truce which existed. On 
the one side was the bloc of the hurgerliche par- 
ties insistent that the war in which Germany had, 
as it seemed to them, won such great successes, 
should not be allowed to conclude without a strik- 
ing addition to German strength and territory; 
on the other side the Socialists, who insisted 
that the war should not be continued a moment 
longer than was necessary, and whose formula 
was that no humiliation of other nations was per- 
missible. If he offended the first his own position 
would be compromised. We can well believe 
that Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, who has 
already sacrificed so much on the altar of patriot- 
ism, would willingly leave the office he holds 
were he to think that this would be for the benefit 
of his country; but he could not but know that, 
were he to fall, his place would in all probability 
be taken by one who would be a mere instru- 
ment in the hands of the chauvinists, and he 
realises well how essential it is to keep up at least 
the appearance of moderation. Did he alienate 
the Socialists, then the unity of the nation would 
be destroyed and the Government would no 



78 THE ISSUE 

longer be assured of the moral support of the 
nation, which alone would enable it to contend 
against the hardships which he could see ap- 
proaching. Were he to commit the Government 
to a policy of annexation, a great agitation 
would be started with the cry that the blood 
of the German soldiers was being shed, not 
for the protection of the Fatherland, but for 
aggression. 

We were, therefore, more inclined to regard 
these speeches as evidence of the position of 
parties and opinions in Germany than as a seri- 
ous contribution to the question of peace. We 
seemed justified in this view because the terms 
held out were of such a kind that he must himself 
have known that they could not for a moment 
have been considered by the states with which 
Germany is at war, as they were terms which 
completely conceded to Germany every matter 
of controversy. Now, however, the situation is 
changed. The German Government officially 
refers to them as proof that it is not Germany 
which is prolonging the war. They are used to 
throw the onus for this upon the Allies, and 
especially upon England. We must, therefore, 
examine them more carefully than we need other- 
wise have done. 

II 

The Chancellor alludes to two speeches, but 
we have in reality four, for on four occasions the 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 79 

Chancellor has spoken of the end of the war, and 
the two later to which he specifically refers can- 
not be understood unless read in connexion with 
the two earlier. 

The first was delivered on May 28, 191 5. It is 
chiefly occupied with the change in the situation 
caused by the entrance of Italy into the war. 
At the end he considers the general position, and 
sums it up in the following words : 

Gentlemen, if the Governments of the coun- 
tries hostile to us believe that they can put off 
the day of awakening by deceiving the people 
and can conceal the responsibility for the crime 
of this war, they are stirring up blind hatred. 
We, supported on our good confidence, on our 
just cause, and on our victorious sword, will not 
allow ourselves to be moved a hair's-breadth 
from the course which we have recognised as the 
right one. In the midst of this confusion of 
spirit and feelings, the German people goes its 
own way, quietly, and in confidence. It is not with 
hatred that we wage this war, but with anger, 
holy anger. The greater is the danger which, 
surrounded by enemies on every side, we have to 
endure, the more the love for our home stirs our 
heart, the more we care for our children and 
grandchildren, so much the more must we endure 
till we have gained and created every possible 
real guarantee and security, so that none of our 
enemies — not alone, not united — will again 
venture on a trial of strength with us. [Enthusi- 
astic applause, shouts of " Bravo," and clapping 



8o THE ISSUE 

of hands in the House and among the spectators.] 
The wilder is the storm that rages round us, the 
firmer must we build up our own house for 
ourselves. 



Here, then, we have the pose assumed by the 
German Nation — injured innocence, a just 
cause, and a victorious sword. A glorious spec- 
tacle; a nation disturbed in the peaceful work of 
culture; but willingly she accepts the challenge 
and goes her way surrounded by enemies — a 
modern Galahad without hate, but in holy anger. 
Of course, we might point out that the holy anger 
of the German Nation is lightly kindled, that 
they do not know the difference themselves be- 
tween hate and anger. Else why this collection 
of one hundred poems of hate, of which Lis- 
sauer's is merely the best known ; else why these 
enthusiastic appreciations of the young art and 
literature which are to be built up on the basis of 
hate; else why Professor Sombart and Professor 
Lasson, who tell us that the hatred of England is 
shared by the whole nation down to the cab- 
drivers of Berlin? 

Not hate, but holy anger. The sentiment 
seems strangely familiar. *' I feel no hatred," 
observed Mr. Pecksniff. " I am hurt, I am 
wounded, but I have no malevolence. If there is 
anger in my bosom it is, I hope, a sacred and, 
shall I say, a holy emotion; but I do not hate 
you, my good sir, I do not hate you." 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 8i 

That which concerns us, however, are the last 
words, for they show what is the end to be 
achieved — "a real guarantee, a security," so 
that " no one of our enemies, alone or united, 
will ever again venture to take up arms against 
us." 

It is a thought which constantly recurs; it is 
the key of his speeches, just as the freedom of 
the small nations and the destruction of Prussian 
militarism is that of Mr. Asquith's; it is his one 
contribution to the peace controversy. 

in 

In his next speech it is explained and expanded. 
This was delivered on August i8. He could then 
speak with greater decision and certainty; Ger- 
many had won great and perhaps unexpected 
successes. Warsaw had fallen, and nearly the 
whole of Congress Poland was occupied by Ger- 
man and Austrian troops. The English offensive 
at Neuve Chapelle had failed; there seemed 
every prospect that Germany would at the worst 
be able to hold all she had won in the West, while 
she could look forward to fresh conquests in the 
East. 

And so with even greater confidence he fore- 
shadows the permanent " freedom " of Poland 
from Russia, and in his peroration opens out the 
prospect of a new Europe firmly established on 
the victories of Germany : 



82 THE ISSUE 

The war, the longer it lasts, will leave Europe 
bleeding from a thousand wounds. The world 
that will arise then shall and will not look as our 
enemies dream. They strive for the restitution 
of the old Europe . . . with a powerless Ger- 
many as the tributary of a gigantic Russian Em- 
pire. . . . No, this gigantic world war will not 
bring back the old situation. A new must arise. 
If Europe is to come to peace it can only be by the 
inviolable and strong position of Germany. . . . 
The English balance of power must disappear, 
because it is, as the English poet Shaw recently 
said, '' a hatching of other wars." 

We cannot read the last words without calling 
to mind former speeches made on the same spot 
by the greatest of his predecessors. Strange in- 
deed it is to hear the successor of Bismarck ap- 
pealing on the questions of international principle 
and policy to the amateur diplomacy of an Eng- 
lish playwright, and one is sure that no one will 
have more readily recognised the full humour of 
the position than the entertaining author whom 
he quotes. It was not on such authorities that 
Bismarck depended when he dealt with questions 
of peace and war. But then he had spent a life- 
time in studying the rules and principles of inter- 
national relationships; the creation and dissolu- 
tion of coalitions was to him the normal instru- 
ment of policy. To him the attitude of his suc- 
cessor would have been the incapacity of the 
clumsy workman who will in a fit of irritation 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 83 

throw away and destroy the machine which he is 
incapable of using. 

And observe the subtle dishonesty of this com- 
parison. He speaks of the contrast of two 
Europes — that before 1870 and a Europe of 
the future ; a Europe with a divided and helpless 
Germany and a Europe in which Germany is the 
sole predominant power. But there was another 
Europe which he does not mention — a Europe 
in which Germany took its place as one among 
the other kindred states — strong, united, self- 
governing, with full and complete opportunities 
for internal development, and able to share in the 
division and rule of other continents ; but a Ger- 
many willing to keep its place as one of many 
equal powers. There was such a Germany, the 
Germany of the eighties, the Germany which 
declined the very idea of further accessions of 
territory, the Germany which was a satiated 
state; it was a Germany which just for this rea- 
son enjoyed the confidence of other countries, 
and was exposed to no attack. And this Germany, 
when it naturally looked for colonial possessions, 
recognised that all extension of influence and 
territory must be the result of agreement and 
bargaining with the other powers. And this 
Germany, based on the inviolable security at 
home, provided for its people a free scope for the 
unparalleled development of their institutions, 
both by growth at home and by free development 
abroad. 



84 THE ISSUE 

But much has changed since then. 

At least we cannot complain that the pro- 
gramme is obscure : the war is to be continued, 
as he concludes his speech, " till the road becomes 
free for the new liberated Europe, free of French 
intrigue, Muscovite desire of conquest, and Eng- 
lish guardianship." So a new Europe will arise 
that is dependent entirely on Germany, a new 
Europe in which Germany will be so strong as 
to be unassailable, a new Europe which will be 
freed from the influence of England and France 
and Russia, and in which all nations will depend 
for their freedom on Germany, for " we are and 
will remain the shield of peace and freedom of 
large and small nations." This will indeed be a 
new Europe. There was an old Europe which we 
all knew, a free and equal federation of states 
and nations, joint inheritors of a common civili- 
sation and common religion, in which each played 
its part and contributed its own share to the 
common life. Each is the guardian of its own 
traditions, and all profit by the contributions of 
the others. In this Europe no state can take 
its share unless it is assured of full and complete 
independence and political self-determination, 
for, as none know so well and tell us so often as 
the Germans, political sovereignty is the neces- 
sary condition for the development of internal 
culture. In the old Europe this independence and 
sovereignty were maintained by a highly artifi- 
cial equilibrium which secures that no state can 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 85 

be deprived of its independence, for each can 
appeal to the protection of the common con- 
science. It is the justice which, as we learn from 
Plato, is the union of the weak against the strong, 
and is the only protection against the tyrant or 
the tyrant state. It was a Europe in which, side 
by side with Germany and Austria, England, 
France, Italy and Russia each played its part, 
and in which the ruling and controlling force 
was to be found not in the arbitrary power of 
a single state, but in the result of the discus- 
sions, negotiations, and compromises between 
them all. 

This Europe the Chancellor would destroy, 
and the announcement of his purpose he calls 
suggestions for peace. By the refusal to con- 
sider any such terms " our enemies," he says, 
*' will incur a terrible blood-guiltiness." 

We can picture to ourselves this new Europe 
which he will create in its place, this Europe 
freed from the English doctrine of the balance of 
power. We know it well: it was the Europe 
that Napoleon created. A Europe in which there 
is a single emperor throned in his imperial city, 
surrounded by an obsequious band of subject and 
obedient princes, who attend and decorate his 
court, and who at the call of war will lead out 
their armies to take their place by his side. A 
Europe in which the mineral wealth and manu- 
facturing skill of the Poles and Flemings would 
be at the service of the German system as surely 



86 THE ISSUE 

as if they were incorporated in one of the Ger- 
man States. If this were won, then indeed the 
war would not have been fought in vain by Ger- 
many, and this is the aim which the Chancellor 
constantly puts before his people, disguised 
under the specious phrase " security." For why 
is this change from the old Europe to the new to 
be made ? For the security of Germany. It is a 
high price we are asked to pay. Germany wishes 
to pursue her peaceful work of culture free from 
the menace of foreign invasion. It is a natural 
desire. It is what every state wishes, and that to 
which the policy of every state has been directed. 
It is an idea that should be attained by all. To a 
large extent it has, as a matter of fact, been won 
for England alone, and it is just for this reason 
that no other country can so well sympathise as 
can England with the desire of other states. We 
have often heard in the past of this security. 
It was for this that the Allies fought and won in 
1 814. It was then established by mutual agree- 
ment between the Powers, and by the system 
under which no one power was so great that it 
could with impunity assail any other, and by so 
arranging the map of Europe that if any one 
state threatened the common security of the 
other, a coalition would quickly be formed by 
which this would be prevented. The settlement 
of 181 5 gave security not to one but to all the 
nations, not only to the victors but to the de- 
feated, to Prussia, to Austria, to Germany, and 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 87 

in an equal extent to France. The system was a 
complicated one, it seemed mechanical; but, in 
fact, as far as anything can be secured in a fabric 
so imperfect and changing as political affairs, it 
answered its purpose. In bringing this about 
England took a chief part, and it has always 
been the object of English policy to help in 
maintaining the security, not of one, but of all 
nations. 

But is this the German idea as put forward by 
the Chancellor? It is exactly the reverse. The 
English idea is security for all ; the German solu- 
tion is security for Germany and for Germany 
alone, and a security won by making Germany 
so strong that she can stand out against the 
whole of Europe. A Germany that could feel 
herself able to withstand the united public opin- 
ion of Europe is, however, a Germany which is 
able also to impose her will on each individual 
state. Germany is to be secure ; but what about 
France? What about Russia? What about 
Italy? What about Holland ? On what has this 
security of Holland in the past depended? On 
nothing but the knowledge that an attack upon 
Holland would involve war with England and 
with France, and Germany was not strong 
enough to encounter this danger. The terms of 
peace suggested by the Chancellor are definitely 
and categorically that Germany should be so 
strong that she would be able to look with in- 
difference on an alliance not only of France and 



88 THE ISSUE 

England, but of France and England supported 
by Russia and Italy. 

IV 

In this speech he still confines himself to gen- 
eralities; he states the general objects to be 
attained, but does not specify the particular 
methods by which they will be won. 

The next speech was delivered in December, 
191 5, and in it he moves a step forward, though 
always with great caution. This is the one in 
which he himself tells us that we are to find his 
peace proposals. The debate during the course 
of which they were made had been carefully 
heralded in the press. Great expectations had 
been aroused. New and great successes had been 
won. Serbia had gone the way of Poland and 
Belgium. The road to Constantinople had been 
cleared, and, except where the Allies clung to the 
narrow strip of land about Salonica, Germany 
and Austria were supreme in the western Bal- 
kans. It was a great success, diplomatic as well 
as military, and it might well be the beginning of 
greater successes in the future; for, now that 
the connexion with Turkey had been established, 
what might not be done in the East ? Egypt and 
Persia were open, and at last might it not be that 
a fatal blow might be struck at that which the 
Germans have come to think is the nerve-centre 
of the British Empire? 

The Chancellor made two speeches. The first 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 89 

need not detain us. We need not grudge him the 
paean over the victories that had been v^on, for 
in truth they had been great, greater probably 
than had been anticipated; nor his pleasure at 
the diplomatic victories in the Balkans: hcec 
olim meminisse juvahit. Nor need we demur 
to his description of the strength of Germany as 
shown by the works of peace carried out behind 
the line of battle. It is no consolation to the 
Allies, nor will it help in an accommodation, that 
even during the time of war Germany's civil 
government is being firmly established over Bel- 
gium, and that the organisation of the Belgian 
schools has been made subservient to the cause 
of Teutonism. 

In truth the natural delight expressed by the 
Chancellor in the achievements of the German 
people has a double edge. For, after all, the very 
strength of their armies and the degree of success 
which they have attained is the best justification 
of the cause of the Allies. Had it appeared that 
the German Nation was not really prepared for a 
great offensive war, then the apprehensions 
caused by German ambition would not have been 
justified. Had the raid on Belgium shown itself 
to be a hasty improvisation undertaken in a not 
unnatural panic, then it might have been con- 
tended that the Triple Entente was an unneces- 
sary, and therefore wanton, threat to German 
security. What we see was, in fact, a strength 
far greater than anyone suspected, a degree of 



90 THE ISSUE 

preparation which could only be explained on the 
h3rpothesis of a long-matured plan for conquest, 
worked out in all its details during peace and car- 
ried out on an arranged programme. The Chan- 
cellor complains that the Allies refuse to accept 
the verdict of the war and give way to the suc- 
cesses of the German army; but does not he see 
it is the very success of Germany that makes 
peace impossible, unless the success is carried to 
that point that all possibility of resistance is 
broken down? 

This speech was the preliminary. At an ad- 
journed sitting it was followed by the real debate. 
This was opened by Herr Scheidemann, who 
spoke on behalf of the Socialist majority. If 
report is true, and we may well believe it, his 
interpellation had been arranged beforehand be- 
tween his party and the Government. His speech 
was very remarkable and deserves to be remem- 
bered. He began by pointing out that a war of 
this kind differed from the normal war between 
small states ; in the latter it might be possible for 
one party to declare itself defeated and therefore 
to beg for peace, but, he added, " in a war which 
involves nearly the whole of Europe it is impos- 
sible for one party to be forced down upon his 
knees," and he draws the conclusion that in such 
a war the first proposals of peace must come, not 
from the defeated, but the victorious, nation. 
Germany so far has been victorious; it is there- 
fore Germany which must speak the first word. 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 91 

He definitely rejected the common conception 
that to be the first to speak of peace was a sign 
of weakness. 

On what terms, then, could Germany oflfer 
peace? While repudiating any weakness as re- 
gards the voices in enemy countries which de- 
manded the crushing and destruction of Ger- 
many, he equally dissociated himself from those 
Germans who ask for annexation : 

We will not conceal from ourselves the fact 
that in this country, too, claims of conquest have 
been put together which no sensible man in the 
Empire would think of realising. My party has 
always strongly opposed this. Abroad these 
claims were looked upon as sufficient reason for 
continuing the war. Annexation would weaken 
the sovereign rights of nations and, for Germany 
in particular, the strength and unity of the Ger- 
man National State. Our foreign political rela- 
tions would thereby be seriously impaired. It 
would produce an increased danger of war and 
an addition to the burden of our armaments. 
We are, therefore, decidedly opposed to all who 
wish to convert this war into one of conquest. 

In the following passage he is equally emphatic 
in his rejection of all claims against the German 
Empire and its security : 

It has been said abroad that there can be no 
question of peace until German militarism has 
been destroyed and Alsace-Lorraine given back 



92 THE ISSUE 

to France. Our opponents' ideas of militarism 
differ from our own. By militarism we do not 
mean the army in which our sons and brothers 
serve. What we combat as militarism is a matter 
to be decided only within the bounds of our own 
country, just as French militarism and English 
navalism must be decided beyond the Vosges and 
the Channel. Of course, we will hear nothing of 
a separation from Alsace-Lorraine. 

He concludes by pointing out that the danger 
to German integrity and independence is over: 

East Prussia has shown what was the extent 
of the Russian danger. There are now no longer 
any immediate dangers threatening our frontiers. 
It is, therefore, our duty to ask the Imperial 
Chancellor on what terms he is willing to nego- 
tiate for peace. The German Nation will not 
wage war a day longer than is absolutely neces- 
sary to attain its ends. For the independence of 
our land our people will do their utmost, but for 
the special interests of capitalists it will not risk 
the life of a single soldier. When our comrades 
hastened to the standard, they did not do so to 
subject the world to the will of Germany, but to 
prevent our position as a country from being 
shattered by a tremendous hostile coalition. A 
peaceful people like the Germans can be un- 
manned by rage, but does not revel in thoughts of 
vengeance and destruction. 

We may publicly declare that we want peace 
because the Germans are strong and determined 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 93 

enough to go on defending hearth and home if 
our adversaries will not have peace. The whole 
world is waiting in breathless expectation for the 
Imperial Chancellor's reply. I hope he will find 
the word of salvation and express his readiness to 
make peace. Then to-day's parliamentary sitting 
will be an important one in history. We wish the 
first decisive step towards the conclusion of this 
fearful war to be taken by Germany. 

These were notable words. They afforded an 
opening on which it would, in truth, have been 
possible for the Chancellor to have done what he 
professes to have done, to have opened the way 
for some kind of negotiation. How were they 
met? We have a definite and categorical refusal 
both in form and in substance. Herr Scheide- 
mann had made two points : first, that Germany, 
just because she had been victorious, could open 
the way for discussion; the second, that any 
terms which Germany might suggest should not 
include claims of conquest which would naturally 
strengthen the resolution of her enemies. Both 
suggestions were rejected. The Chancellor made 
a long and involved speech of which a large part 
was devoted to a violent attack upon England, 
but when at the end he comes to the real issue he 
has nothing to say. As to the first point he would 
not accept Scheidemann's suggestion. Germany 
could not offer terms : that was the function of 
the defeated. It was from the enemy that the 
first step must be looked for : 



94 THE ISSUE 

So long as the tangle of guilt and ignorance 
continues amongst those in power among our 
enemies, and their intellectual attitude governs 
the hostile peoples, any offer of peace on our side 
would be folly, which would not shorten but 
would prolong the war. This we must take into 
account. With peace suggestions on our side 
we shall not advance, and above all we shall not 
come to any result. Peace proposals of our 
enemies, which correspond to the dignity and 
security of the German Empire, — I constantly 
repeat it, — we are always ready to discuss. 

The self-deception is that the enemy did not 
believe that they were defeated, that they did not 
recognise that the war was decided. No pro- 
posals, therefore, would be made by Germany 
in the capacity of victor. The Chancellor tells 
us that he will not refuse to consider offers that 
are made to him; so far his condescension will 
go. Like another Napoleon, he will not refuse to 
listen to those who come to him as suppliants for 
peace, and then he proceeds to tell us what the 
terms will be. The words are familiar, but we 
must quote them in full : 

It shall not be said that we have prolonged 
the war for a single day because we wished to 
conquer this or that additional pledge. In my 
earlier speeches I have explained the general! 
aims of the war. I cannot go into details to-day. 
I cannot say what guarantees the Imperial Gov- 
ernment will require — e.g., in the Belgian ques- 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 95 

tlon, what foundation of power it will consider 
necessary for these guarantees. But one thing our 
enemies must see themselves : the longer and the 
more bitterly they wage war against us, the more 
will grow the guarantees that are necessary for us. 

So far we have, then, the old conception of guar- 
antees for the future greatness and security of Ger- 
many — guarantees which are to be based on an 
undefined increase of power. Then he proceeds : 

If our enemies will for all future time erect 
a barrier between Germany and the rest of the 
world, they cannot wonder if we also arrange 
our future on similar lines. Neither in the East 
nor in the West must our enemies of to-day 
dispose of gates through which they can fall 
upon us and threaten us more sharply than they 
have done in the past. It is known that France 
gave her loans to Russia only on the express 
condition that Russia should build her Polish 
fortresses and railways against us; and it is just 
as well known that England and France looked on 
Belgium as a starting-point for an attack on us. 
Against that we must protect ourselves politically, 
militarily and economically we must secure our 
development. What is necessary for this must 
be attained. I think that there is no one in the 
German Fatherland who does not desire these 
ends. What means are necessary for this end — 
on that we keep the decision in our own hands. 

Now the Chancellor himself refers to this 
speech as the authentic expression of German 



96 THE ISSUE 

peace terms. It is the only one that we have 
yet had. There is nothing in his later speech 
to alter them. Here he says nothing about 
Austria, the East, and the other fields of war; 
he confines himself to that which immediately 
and solely afTects Germany, and his terms are 
categorically that Poland and Belgium are to 
be brought under the commercial, military, and 
political control of Germany. How this is to be 
done he does not say; he does not commit him- 
self to or against annexation; the future rela- 
tions of Poland to Austria are for obvious rea- 
sons left untouched. But these are matters which 
do not concern the enemies of Germany; they 
are matters on which Germany will at her own 
good time give her decision. What does concern 
the Allies, and what especially concerns England, 
is that Poland and Belgium are in some form or 
another to be brought into the German system, 
so that Germany will have guarantees that for 
the future she shall have control over them.^ 

1 In his latest speech on September 29, 1916, the Chancellor 
has again referred to this speech as containing the authentic 
evidence of his willingness to make peace on reasonable terms: 

''From the very first day the war meant for us nothing 
but the defence of our right to life, freedom, and development. 
For this reason we were the first and the only ones to declare 
our readiness for peace negotiations. On December 9 of last 
year I spoke of this clearly enough, and have since repeated 
it. Mr. Asquith and Lord Robert Cecil cannot do away 
with my words by the statement that we had announced no 
conditions of peace, or only such as were intolerable and 
humiliating. We have done our part." 

The reader must judge for himself whether terms of peace 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 97 

In the circumstances in which it was made 
this speech was well devised. It gave a formula 
which enabled the Government to avoid commit- 
ting itself to the party of the annexationists or of 
opposing them. It was admirably suited to keep 
up the unity of the German Nation, and at least 
for a time it answered that purpose ; but what are 
we to think of the statesmanship of the man who 
months later refers to it as evidence of his will- 
ingness to make peace, who supposes that this 
formula may be the beginning of negotiations ? 

One can indeed imagine circumstances in which 
these terms would be a fitting basis for negotia- 
tions. If the German armies had occupied, not 
Lille and Warsaw but Paris and Moscow; if the 
English army had been defeated and was no 
longer able to resist the advance of the Germans ; 
if a final decision had been given on the battle- 
field ; if we were in presence of a victory such as 
that of 1866 or 1870; then indeed the Allies would 
have to consider the abandonment of all for the 
sake of which the war was accepted by them — 
the liberties of Europe, the security of France, 
and the integrity and independence of Belgium. 

If we are to understand the full insolence of 
the Chancellor's language we must recollect that 
the one great question from which the war 
originated was the refusal of Germany to allow 

which included the permanent control of Germany over 
Belgium answered to the description which the Chancellor 
gives of them, or whether Mr. Asquith and Lord R. Cecil are not 
justified in criticising them as "intolerable and humiliating." 



98 THE ISSUE 

the other powers to be consulted in a matter 
which had always been held to be a common 
European concern ; if the Allies were not strong 
enough to enforce the claim of Europe to be 
heard, then for all time it would be determined 
that there was to be only one voice heard in 
Europe. His conditions were therefore such as 
could naturally be suggested only after a complete 
defeat of the armies which left the enemy at the 
mercy of Germany. But these terms were pro- 
pounded when no such defeat had taken place. 
He confounded a temporary strategical gain with 
a decisive victory, and when the struggle was at 
its height presumed to use the language of a con- 
queror. What a prospect does this hold out of 
the fate of Europe were there to be a real and 
decisive success for Germany! 

It is, then, on this, and on this alone, that the 
claim made that he is working for peace is based. 
For to this his later speech which was made 
in April adds nothing, and from it takes away 
nothing. It is perhaps less explicit, it is perhaps 
more apologetic and less positive in tone, but on 
all that concerns the positive suggestions for 
ending the war there is nothing. As to Belgium, 
which is for Englishmen always the essential 
thing, we have indeed the additional suggestion 
that in any settlement Germany will have to 
guard the Flemings in the use of their own 
language from the oppression of the Walloons. 
But how can this be done if the independence and 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE 99 

integrity of Belgium are to be restored ? And he 
knows that there is no possibihty of any discus- 
sion except on the basis that the full restoration 
of Belgium is the first point : 

Gentlemen, Russia must not again march her 
armies for a second time to the unprotected 
frontier of East and West Prussia. Not for a 
second time must she be allowed, by the use of 
French gold, to make the land of the Vistula 
a sally-point against unprotected Germany. Can 
anyone believe that we will surrender the lines 
which we have occupied in the West, in which 
the blood of our people has flowed, without 
complete security for our future ? We will make 
for ourselves real guarantees that Belgium will 
not again become an English-French vassal- 
state, and that she shall not be built out as a 
military and economic bulwark against Germany. 
Here also there is no status quo ante. Here also 
Germany cannot surrender the Flemish race, 
which has so long been kept down, to Frenchifi- 
cation. We must secure for it a healthy, broad 
development, corresponding to its characteristics 
on the basis of its Low German (Niederldndisch) 
speech and character. 

Germany is to have real guarantees. What is 
meant by a '* real guarantee"? Real guaran- 
tees — military, economic, and political. It is not 
to be supposed that the Chancellor would be 
content with the security merely of a treaty, 
neither a simple treaty nor a general treaty, nor 



100 THE ISSUE 

the decision of a conference ratified by all the 
powers and enforced by formal guarantees. 
These are the securities on which other states 
in the past have from time to time depended: 
the security of Germany is too precious to be 
allowed to rest on so frail and uncertain a basis. 
The currency of treaty obligations and of paper 
guarantees has been depreciated. After all, it 
might be that the time would come when some 
other nation might find itself in a state of neces- 
sity; it might be remembered that treaties have 
only a conditional application, that they dis- 
appear with changed circumstances, and so Ger- 
many must have her real guarantees. 

What does he mean by this? The words can 
have no meaning, and, in fact, obviously are 
intended to have no meaning except that Belgium 
and Poland are to be brought under the political 
system of Germany, to be associated with the 
German commercial system and controlled by 
the German army. The formula as to Belgium 
deserves attention ; it is one of those unsurpass^ 
able suggestions in which the German Chancellor 
is supreme. They cannot allow that Belgium 
shall be a place from which France and England 
can begin their march against them. Belgium 
must no longer be a sally-port threatening the 
German Empire. Well, one would have thought 
that experience showed that Belgian territory 
was the base of operations, not against Germany, 
but against France. Who else in the world 



THE CHANCELLOR AND PEACE loi 

could, at less than a week's notice, have thrown 
a million soldiers into Belgium under the plea of 
necessity, used Belgian territory as the base of 
operations for marching straight upon Paris, and 
then, with smug self-satisfaction, come before the 
public assembly of his own countrymen, and 
speaking, not only to them but to the whole of 
Europe, have seriously laid down the proposition 
that in future Belgium must not be used by France 
as the base of operations against Germany ? 

The Chancellor cannot tell us in what these 
guarantees are to consist. We are really not 
curious. The details do not matter. It does not 
matter in the least whether Belgium is annexed 
to the Empire or to Prussia or left in the enjoy- 
ment of its own dynasty and nominal and legal 
autonomy. It did not matter whether Saxony 
was annexed in 1866, as was Hanover, or allowed 
to remain a separate kingdom. It matters noth- 
ing whether a future King of Belgium enjoys 
the privilege of the Duke of Mecklenburg, or 
whether the Kingdom of Poland is to take its 
place among the seventeen territories over which 
the House of Hapsburg rules, or to be partitioned 
between Hapsburg and Hohenzollern. That 
which does matter is that these nations shall not 
come into the German system in such a way that 
their industry goes to swell the resources of Ber- 
lin, their armies fight by the side of the Prussians, 
and the development of their institutions is as- 
similated to those of Germany. 



102 THE ISSUE 

His last formula used in his speech of June i8, 
1916, is the " geographical situation of the war 
map." Schemes of peace could attain their ob- 
ject only if carried on by statesmen of the bel- 
ligerent countries on the basis of the military 
situation as shown by the war map. Well, the 
war map is a very serious thing, but it is not the 
same as the military situation, and peaceful 
though his career has been, little part though he 
may have taken in military affairs, he cannot be 
so ignorant of the writings of the soldiers of his 
own country as not to know the difference. That 
which tells in war is not the extent of territory 
occupied at any moment, but the number and 
efficiency of the armies which can be brought 
into the field on either side. So long as the 
forces of the enemy are able to keep the field 
intact, so long any territory occupied is only a 
precarious possession. And of the enemies of 
Germany there is not one except Serbia which 
is not in the field with an army, relatively, as 
regards the German forces, as strong as or 
stronger than when the war began. 

The armies are still in the field, but he will 
make a peace as though they had disappeared, for 
that is what it comes to. Peace on the war map 
is another way of saying what he has said so 
often before. Peace on the assumption that 
Belgium and Poland and Serbia are not only 
occupied but conquered. 



CHAPTER IV 

PRINCE BULOW ON PEACE ^ 

In a former article I discussed the attitude of 
the present German Chancellor towards peace, 
and attempted to show how little hope there 
was that from him we could expect any reason- 
able proposals. Since then we have had a con- 
tribution to the same question from one who is 
both a past, and — may we not add ? — a possible 
future Chancellor. Prince Biilow is undoubtedly 
the most distinguished of living German states- 
men ; he is, above all, the man in whom the Bis- 
marck tradition lives, he has held the office of 
Chancellor longer than anyone since Bismarck's 
retirement, and it is not probable that a man of 
his experience and ability will be allowed to re- 
main in retirement at a time when the country 
needs all that it has of the wisest leadership. If 
the time comes when Herr von Bethmann-Holl- 
weg finds, as he easily may do, his position un- 
tenable, it is Prince Biilow who is clearly marked 
out to be his successor. 

If doubt is felt in this by anyone, it is certainly 
not felt by Prince Biilow himself. 

^ Nineteenth Century and After , August, 19 16. 



104 THE ISSUE 

For Prince Billow's suggestions as to the terms 
of peace which may properly be imposed by Ger- 
many when victorious we have to turn to the 
new edition of his book, Imperial Germany} 
With much that is contained in this work I am 
not here concerned. Most of it is occupied with a 
review of German history for the last twenty-five 
years and a defence of his own policy. But 
both in his Introduction and from time to time 
in the course of the new edition, he has intro- 
duced valuable suggestions for the future. 

He is indeed in a very favourable position for 
doing so, more favourable than the Chancellor 
himself. He at least is free from the responsi- 
bility for the outbreak of the war; he therefore 
can approach the future with a free mind. 
Between him and the countries at war with 
Germany there has been no personal breach. 
There is nothing to prevent him meeting at the 
council-table the statesmen of enemy countries. 
And we may be grateful that he has observed 
throughout the book a discretion which is now 
too rare. He has kept himself free from the 
passion, the anger, the invective that are too 
common in all that comes to us from across the 
water. There is none of the heady indignation, 
the passionate invectives, the crude denunciation 
of English hypocrisy and English brutality to 
which we are now so accustomed. There is 

^ Imperial Germany. New and revised edition. Cassell & 
Co., Ltd., 1916. 



PRINCE BULOW ON PEACE 105 

criticism of the enemy countries, but criticism 
phrased in language which even those who differ 
from it cannot for a moment object to. We see, 
indeed, the desire to restore relations, even in the 
protest against the expression used by Lord 
Rosebery of Judas kisses. That the expression 
was a not unfair description of German policy, as 
expounded by the Prince himself, most English- 
men will believe. Here we need only note the 
obvious desire to resume the cool business tone 
which normally exists between the ministers of 
modern states even when they are most opposed 
to one another. 

Indeed the note of the book is discretion and 
conciliation. It is the book of a man who will 
make himself persona grata to every country. 
For Italy there. is regret that she so misunder- 
stood her own interest as to leave her own Allies 
and trust herself to England : 

To avoid the breach between Italy and Austria 
lay especially in the interests of Italy. Will 
Italy get with her new Allies what she sacri- 
ficed by giving up the old? The greatest inter- 
ests which Italy had, her Mediterranean interests, 
have always been looked on by England with 
cool indifference, by France with traditional 
jealousy, by Russia with scarcely concealed 
distaste. 

This is the language of a friend who, though 
grieved, is still at heart a friend. It is far from 



io6 THE ISSUE 

the wrath and revenge that generally are heard 
from Berlin. It is the language of a man who 
would make the reconciliation easy. It is the 
language of a man who hopes to sow dissension 
between the Allies, and who knows that more 
is to be won by conciliation than by indignation. 
Even Japan is not without the pale : '* it will 
rest with her to win once more the confidence of 
the victorious German Empire." For the neutrals 
there are well-chosen words of kindness and 
sympathy. Except for America : " The anger 
which is so widely felt in Germany against the 
American people with whom they had such 
friendly feelings is only too natural and compre- 
hensible." With America reconciliation will, it 
seems, be difficult. 

The coolness and dispassionate tone are, 
however, not without a purpose. Prince Billow 
has his eyes on the future, and again and again 
we find indications of the manner in which he 
hopes to treat the problems that will arise after 
the war. It would not be going too far to inter- 
pret the book as a bid for power, as a suggestion 
that it is in his hands that the peace negotiations 
would best be placed. There is not a word in 
it that would prevent him from taking up the 
thread of international problems; he would come 
to the task unencumbered by the passions that 
have been excited. 

What, then, has this accomplished statesman, 
this amateur of Realpolitik, this pupil of Bis- 



PRINCE BULOW ON PEACE 107 

marck, to offer to the world when the time comes 
that he anticipates and Germany is called upon to 
announce the terms on which peace will be 
restored? It is all clearly explained. England, 
France, and Russia, each is dealt with in its 
place. They are set out with admirable cour- 
tesy; all is reasonable, so reasonable that we 
seem to share his belief that they are nothing 
more than the other countries might willingly 
offer of themselves. There is nothing of revenge, 
no waving of the sword, and if the mailed fist is 
there, and the shining armour, the mailed list is 
clothed in a thick glove of satin, and the shining 
armour is hardly seen beneath the court dress 
of the diplomatist. 

We have nothing of the crude arrogance of 
the Nationalists, of Count Reventlow and Herr 
Bassermann or the Crown Prince of Bavaria. 
We are spared the heavy denunciations of the 
Chancellor against the plans for the annihilation 
of Germany. He does not take as his text the 
uncritical collection of extracts from journalists 
and novelists which the German Foreign Office 
seems to keep as material for the time when the 
Chancellor has to make a speech. With him all 
is dispassionate reasoning; in fact, he makes his 
demands in such a way that we feel he expects 
that they will be assented to by the enemies of 
Germany. But different as the tone and attitude 
are, there is no difference in the substance. 

What are his proposed terms? Let us take, 



io8 THE ISSUE 

first, England. From England he demands 
nothing less than that she should accept the 
" freedom of the seas " and a strengthening of 
the German coast-line: 

After a war that has been waged by the 
German people with incomparable heroism, but 
also with terrible sacrifices, against half the world, 
we have the right and also the duty to require, 
not only our own security and independence at 
sea, but above all a real guarantee for the free- 
dom of the seas, for the further completion of 
our economic and political tasks in the world. 

Although after we had trod the road of world- 
policy, we had often had England as an opponent, 
our relations to England, when we had attained 
the necessary strength at sea, could be genuinely 
and without reserve friendly. Just by the build- 
ing of our fleet we had removed the chief hin- 
drance to cooperation between us and England on 
the basis of full equality and mutuality, we had 
freed the road for an understanding between the 
two countries on all domains of world-policy. 
The English ministers would not recognise this, 
they did not wish for an understanding, and did 
not desire a reasonable cooperation. Therefore 
they cannot be surprised if, in view of the un- 
favourable nature of our coast for security and 
independence, we demand from England serious 
and real guarantees. 

Well, England would not be surprised at any- 
thing that Germany demanded, but we should 



PRINCE BULOW ON PEACE 109 

like to see translated into the prosaic language 
of a diplomatic instrument these suggestions. 
German independence at sea can in this connex- 
ion mean nothing less than a German superiority 
to England in naval strength; the insecurity of 
the German coast, whatever that may mean (it 
would have appeared that no country has a coast 
which by its geographical nature is so secure 
from attack as that of Germany), can only be 
remedied by the extension of German naval power 
over other parts of the coasts of the North Sea. 

So it all comes to this : Germany was to build 
a fleet so strong that it would be a danger to 
England, and during the dangerous period of 
transition England was to be kept quiet by clever 
diplomacy. Then, when the fleet was built, 
England was to recognise that, as Germany was 
so strong that her enmity would be dangerous, 
she must enter into an alliance with Germany. 
As she did not do that, and a war has ensued in 
which Germany has, as will happen in a war, 
incurred severe losses, there is nothing for it but 
for England to acquiesce in German superiority, 
with all this means of danger to English safety. 

The prospect held out to France is similar. 
France had always refused to acquiesce in the 
loss of Alsace-Lorraine. " There was no under- 
standing of the fact that what seemed to them 
the brutal harshness of the conqueror was a 
national necessity for us Germans." Of course 
it was their duty to see that what Germany 



no THE ISSUE 

thought was a national necessity for herself must 
therefore be accepted as the only right and proper 
solution by the French. They have not done 
this voluntarily, therefore they must be made 
to do so. 

Perhaps the French people will in the course 
of time adapt themselves to the decisions of the 
Peace of Frankfort when they see that they are 
unalterable, and especially if we succeed in con- 
firming our strategic position as against France, 
which has always remained an unfavourable one. 

It is all so simple and reasonable. Germany 
took Alsace and Lorraine ; they were wanted by 
her, the nation demanded them; on this there 
is nothing more to say. In order to secure the 
booty, Metz was taken purely for strategic 
reasons. It was taken, as Bismarck said, because 
Moltke told him that in a war it would be worth 
100,000 men. The French were, after all, not 
convinced. They are an emotional and idealistic 
race, they do not understand Realpolitik; it is all 
very melancholy, but there is nothing to be done 
but to apply the same remedy in a stronger form. 
The frontier must be again altered, the weakness 
of France must be confirmed ; they must give up 
their dreams. What is to be taken we do not 
know. Is it only Belfort, or is Nancy to be 
added? That matters little. It will be enough 
to show the French their proper place in the 
world — and then things will go smoothly. 



PRINCE BULOW ON PEACE iii 

It is precisely the solution that every other 
German offers us. Wherever the experience of 
the war has shown that there is any weakness in 
the German strategic position, there this must 
be remedied. England at sea has advantages 
that Germany has not; they must be removed. 
France is indeed weaker than Germany, but the 
difference is not sufficiently marked; it must be 
made clearer. 

Could we have clearer evidence than this that 
no satisfactory conclusion to the war can be given 
until it has been clearly shown that the Peace of 
Frankfort, a peace enforced on France purely 
by the power of the sword, is not unalterable? 
But there is another passage which shows in an 
even more remarkable manner the attitude of 
Prince Biilow, a passage v/hich clearly indicates 
that on the great question of annexation or no 
annexation, he is to be found on the side of the 
extreme German annexationists. I have dealt 
at length with the demands of the six indus- 
trial associations; their manifesto has be- 
come a sort of confession of faith which divides 
Germany, and it has been shown that the 
Chancellor has carefully refrained from express- 
ing his approval of their demands. But Prince 
Billow is to be found among those who have 
subscribed to their doctrines. He has, in fact, 
gone out of his way, quite unnecessarily for the 
purpose of his argument, to express his general 
approval of their action: 



112 THE ISSUE 

Turning to the international teaching of the 
world war and to the future position of the 
German Empire in the world, our six great 
industrial associations have joined together for 
a common manifestation of united and deter- 
mined patriotic purpose, and have dealt with 
that question which is of the greatest importance 
for Germany's present and future, the question 
of the position of Germany as it emerges from 
the war in Europe and in the world, both in 
regard to political and industrial power. This 
constitutes a serious warning to foreign coun- 
tries who reckon on the old party and industrial 
discords in Germany. 

What this appears to mean is that their 
manifesto is to be a point of unity for all parties 
and all classes — a suggestion which is not indeed 
likely to reconcile foreign countries with the aims 
of united Germany. 

So much for France; but Russia, too, must 
be weakened. Here, again, there is a right and 
a duty. It is always the duty of Germany to 
weaken her neighbours. 

There was perhaps no country that Russia 
so seldom found in her way as Germany. That 
has naturally altered since an enormous war has 
broken out between us and Russia. 

We might have added that it had been altered 
since Germany embarked on an active policy 
in the Balkans which was in open opposition to 



PRINCE BULOW ON PEACE 113 

that of Russia. We might have pointed out that 
it was Prince Billow himself who in 1909 chal- 
lenged Russia in the Balkans. 

We have now the right and the duty to de- 
mand a real guarantee that East Prussia, the 
province that in the course of centuries has suf- 
fered more than any other from foreign inva- 
sions, shall not again be exposed to barbarous 
devastation. King Ludwig III spoke from the 
heart of the Bavarian and German people when 
he said that we require a peace which will secure 
us rest for many decades. Such enormous sacri- 
fices must not be made in vain. We require in 
the East a greatly increased and strengthened 
security, which in the nature of things can only 
consist in a correction of our unfavourable east- 
ern frontier, a correction which protects us from 
further invasions. 

It is the old story: Germany is to be secured 
from invasion on every side. Whatever wars 
take place in the future, this at least shall be 
secured — that they shall not be fought on the 
soil of Germany. This will be a holy land. When 
the new frontiers have been mapped out, then all 
will be well, for any future war will be fought on 
foreign soil. 

The eastern frontier is of course the same thing 
as the Polish question. On this Prince Billow 
is a special expert. He had studied it in the 
school of Bismarck, and on it he speaks at greater 



114 THE ISSUE 

length and in more detail than on most of these 
questions. One thing that emerges is that Poland 
is to be sacrificed. He has no solution but the 
old one — the continued partition of Poland, and 
the continued subjection of those Poles who fall 
to the share of Prussia to that process of German- 
isation with which his administration was iden- 
tified. He reprints the old chapter on the 
problem of the eastern frontier, and asserts with 
full conviction that no course is possible except 
that of defending Germanism by expropriating 
Polish landowners and discouraging the use of 
the Polish language. This is a part of the 
German mission of Kultiir. It is again " a 
national duty of the German people to itself." 

The struggle for the soil, which is in its es- 
sence the struggle for a sufficient stiffening of 
the East with German men, will always be the 
Alpha and Omega of our national German policy 
in the East. The struggle for German KulHir 
and culture, above all for the German language, 
must accompany it. With our plantation policy 
we fight for Germanism in the East, with our 
school policy in truth we fight for our Poles, 
whom we wish to bring nearer to German intel- 
lectual life. 

Whatever may happen across the border the 
Prussian Poles are to remain Prussian and to be 
Germanised. They are to have no part in the 
fortunes of their fellow countrymen. As he says 



PRINCE BULOW ON PEACE 115 

again and again, " Prussia cannot allow Posen 
to become a second Galicia." 

The policy of the eastern frontier is at bottom 
as simple as possible. Its solution is less a ques- 
tion of political wisdom than one of political 
courage. 

In the Polish provinces of Prussia there is, 
then, to be no change. There will be added to 
them what is necessary to guard East Prussia 
against invasion. What is to happen to the 
rest of Poland? It is a question that does not 
interest him. He recognises that the result of 
the war might be the reconstruction of an inde- 
pendent or autonomous Poland, but he does not 
desire it. He does not desire it for the very 
sufficient reason that " it is a matter for con- 
sideration whether the separation of Congress 
Poland would mean a weakening of Russia," but 
it certainly would be a danger to Prussia. 

Were the world war to fulfil the dream of the 
Poles, were it to be that we really carried out for 
the Poles what they gained for a short time from 
our most dangerous enemy, Napoleon the First; 
and were, a hundred and fifty years after the 
Great King and the First Partition, an inde- 
pendent or autonomous Poland to be created, then 
the indissoluble connexion between the Prussian 
monarchy and the eastern provinces must be se- 
cured with all the more resolution, the future 
of Germanism in the mixed districts be guarded 



ii6 THE ISSUE 

all the more carefully and conscientiously. What 
the German sword has won for the Poles by 
German power and German blood must not, as 
a result, bring injury to the Prussian State and 
to Germanism. 

He does not wish for a restoration of Poland 
in any form, and he quotes with approval a 
saying of Bismarck when discussing the possi- 
bility of a war with Russia: 

And what should we do if we had defeated 
Russia? Restore Poland? Then in twenty 
years we could have a new alliance between the 
three Empires in order to finish with a fourth 
partition of Poland. But this amusement is not 
worth a great war. 

The Polish question is one which is necessarily 
outside the special interests of England ; it is one 
in which she never has been, and never will be, 
able to exercise a decisive influence. On the one 
occasion when she attempted to interfere she did 
more harm than good. It has, however, been 
the hope of every Englishman that, whatever 
might be the result of the war, it would not fail 
to do much towards restoring to the Poles their 
nationality. Here at least it seemed that it 
could not be but that something would be 
achieved towards settling the most difficult of 
European problems. 

It is clear that from Prince Biilow no help will 
be found. Russia must indeed be weakened. 



PRINCE BULOW ON PEACE 117 

She must share the fate of France and England ; 
but it is elsewhere that this must be done, not 
in Poland but in the Ukraine : 

Naturally also we cannot wish for a recupera- 
tion of the Russian Empire. We shall have to 
count on this, however, in view of the constant 
increase of the Russian population, and the na- 
tional and religious homogeneity of the mass of 
the Russian people, unless Russia falls to pieces 
politically or socially, or loses the Ukraine, its 
corn store, and the basis of its industry. 

The principle put forward — is it not a danger- 
ous one? If Germany were after all not victori- 
ous, cannot we imagine, say, a French statesman 
quoting these words to their author at a peace 
congress? Could we not see him pointing out 
that France could not wish the recuperation of 
Germany, showing how in view of the yearly 
increase of the population and the homogeneity 
of the people this must inevitably come about, 
and that therefore, unless Germany fell to pieces, 
unless the Empire were dissolved, or a social 
revolution broke out, it would really be necessary 
to take away those Western provinces which 
were the basis of its industrial prosperity? For, 
after all, the sacrifices of the war have not been 
confined to Germany. It is not German soldiers 
alone that have fallen. There are widows and 
orphans in France too. It shows less than his 
usual foresight, but it also shows in its barren 



ii8 THE ISSUE 

nakedness the crude national egoism on which, 
despite the appearance of reason, is built up his 
whole political thought. In him, as in every 
German, there is no conception of any principle 
governing the relations between states beyond 
that of the eternal struggle — which, whether by 
war or diplomacy, shall do most injury to the 
other. 

And this it is which will be the final verdict on 
him and his policy. It is not to him that we can 
look as to the deus ex machina who will rescue 
Europe from her present distress. This able 
statesman, this skilled and experienced diplo- 
matist, this accomplished man of the world, what 
has he to offer us? There is no trick of the 
trade that he does not know; compared with 
him the Chancellor is, in fact, an inexperienced 
bungler. He has learnt to look at the States 
of Europe as pawns to be moved by the master 
hand, and he is never tired of explaining the 
admirable game that he played when it was for 
him to play. As it seemed to him, he knew, 
better than they themselves did, the true interests 
of every country in Europe; he could tell what 
was the right move for England, and how Italy 
should play. When the German fleet had been 
built, then of course there was nothing for 
England to do but to come into an alliance with 
a country which was now so strong that it could 
not be her interest to be at enmity with it. 
And so the friendship of Germany was offered to 



PRINCE BULOW ON PEACE iig 

England. Italy he knew as a second home, and 
he could see that the interest of Italy was to 
remain in the Triple Alliance; she would get 
more from it than from the other side. 

And then the whole house of cards which had 
been built up with such care collapsed. England 
was offered the friendship of Germany ; the two 
countries would indeed have had the world at 
their feet. But the friendship was offered at a 
price, the price of leaving those with whom we 
had been on the closest terms of friendship, and 
it was friendship with a country which openly 
boasted that they had beguiled us. It was an 
offer that required close scrutinising, and the 
answer was made : " We do not wish for new 
friendships at the price of sacrificing our old 
friends." One honest word dispelled all the mists 
and baffling clouds of poison gas. And Italy 
answered : *' Yes, we should no doubt get much 
from you; we should get it at once and without 
a struggle; but by doing so we should for all 
time sacrifice our independence and our power 
of self-determination; we should be a mere 
vassal State of Germany. Better than this a 
contest, for even if we are defeated in it we shall 
have saved our honour." 

Prince Biilow is indeed like the magician in the 
old story who found that unwittingly he had 
raised up daemonic forces which he was unable to 
control. In order to get the money to build his 
fleet he had to give the reins to the German Navy 



120 THE ISSUE 

League, who would not put to their open hopes 
and ambitions the Hmits that were necessary if 
England were to be properly beguiled ; and while 
he was explaining that, after all, the strong 
German fleet would be all to the good of England 
and would be the proper basis for friendly rela- 
tions in the future, they with a foolish honesty 
insisted that it should be used to wrest from 
England the supremacy of the seas. To Serbia 
and Poland and Rumania he was as blind as 
was Metternich to the aspirations of Italy and 
Germany; he did not see that these national 
forces could not for all time be kept down by 
acute diplomacy and bargaining, nor even kept 
under by the soldier and the policeman. 

And for Europe as a whole he has no message. 
So blinded is he by his admiration for Bismarck 
that he does not see how far the world has 
moved ; he does not understand that that which 
was right and necessary in order to build up the 
German State, and to secure it during the first 
years of its existence, now belongs to the past. 
There has never entered into his mind a Europe 
different from that of the past. All he sees is a 
continuance of the old game of the rival Powers 
intriguing for place and power, with this differ- 
ence, that in the future Germany is always to 
hold all the trumps. Even the German scheme 
of a Mitteleiiropa, which at least is a real attempt 
at construction, he passes over without a word. 
Still less has it occurred to him that there is 



PRINCE BULOW ON PEACE 121 

possible a Europe in which, when each state has 
attained those frontiers which are necessary for 
the completeness of its national existence, the 
period of war and rivalry which belonged to the 
stage of formation may be over; that a peace 
congress should leave a state of things in which 
the ceaseless struggle for territory which has been 
the cause of so many wars should cease, at least 
in the West, and that the apportionment of terri- 
tory and the guarantee for its continuance should 
not depend on the mere strength of the sword 
but on the verdict of the united Continent. 



CHAPTER V 
CENTRAL EUROPE 1 

I 

Those who have studied the history of German 
poHtical thought cannot fail to observe the in- 
genuity with which at each stage in the progress 
of the Prussian State there have been found his- 
torians and philosophers to proclaim the theory 
and principle by which it is justified. The ag- 
gression of the Government and the tyranny of 
war and the cruelty of organisation have to be 
properly decked out that they may take their 
place in high intellectual society. For the satis- 
faction of their own spirit they require a formula. 
The Prussian Government has never wanted 
priests and prophets. There was a time when 
we were told that the state was the end in itself, 
and the pupils of Hegel taught that its existence 
was its own justification. A generation passed, 
and the Prussian Government, which in 1815 
had been the strongest enemy of the national 
idea, clothed itself in the fashionable doctrine of 
the time, and the conquest of Germany disguised 
itself as the unity of the German Nation. 

^ Westminster Gazette, May 8, 19 16. 



CENTRAL EUROPE 123 

The idea of nationality has been useful, and 
for forty years it has been proclaimed by the his- 
torian apologists of the Empire. But the idea of 
nationality will do no more. It imposes limits. 
It has been stretched to its uttermost by the 
Pan-Germans, but it has been stretched beyond 
its capacity. It involves a logical contradiction. 
The conception of nationality requires reciproc- 
ity. A state which is based on this idea cannot 
refuse to recognise the nationality of other states 
as equally justified. For a few weeks in the 
spring of 1848 this was recognised, and there 
was a time when the German patriots held out a 
hand of sympathy to the Poles and Italians and 
Hungarians. It was not for long, for the logic 
of facts showed that the recognition of other 
nationalities must lead to a diminution of Ger- 
man ascendancy. The achievements of 1866 and 
1870 for a time freed the German Nation frorn 
the necessity of thinking. They had gained 
sufficient for the moment; the absorption and 
incorporation of what had been achieved sufficed 
for a generation; the catchword of nationality, 
of the National-Staat, would suffice. But the 
success which they have gained in this war opens 
out further ambitions. German Kidtitr is no 
longer merely the expression of the full con- 
sciousness of German nationality. It is a sacred 
positive truth, world-wide in its application, to 
which other less favoured nations have to bow. 
But the imposing of, German Kidtur upon them 



124 THE ISSUE 

is obviously a diminution of their own national 
self-consciousness. The work cannot be carried 
out under this category. And so we find that 
the most thoughtful of modern Germans tell us 
that nationality has played its part, and that now 
its exaggerations must be curbed, for the prin- 
ciple of nationality means the dissolution of the 
Austrian Empire, and the greater Germany of 
the future depends for its security on an alliance 
with an Austria stronger and greater than be- 
fore ; " the national democratic fever must be 
subdued " ; " it is a destructive element." To 
subdue it would be an enormous gain in peace 
and security. It must give way to the idea of 
German freedom. 

It is the exposition of this new attitude that 
gives its interest to Herr Naumann's book, Mit- 
teleiiropa,^ one of the most important contri- 
butions to political thought that has appeared 
since the war began. Herr Naumann, who has 
long been known as a prominent exponent of 
Christian Socialism, is no mere chauvinistic rhet- 
orician; he takes a place apart from the mob 
of pamphleteers who repeat with vacant uniform- 
ity the virtues of Germany and the crimes of 
England. He does not merely require the world 
to accept German Kultur, he explains to us what 
it is, and he paints in firm outline the new Eu- 

1 Mitteleuropa, von Friedrich Naumann. Berlin, 1915: 
Druck und Verlag von Georg Reimer. There is now an 
English translation, published by P. S. King & Co. 



CENTRAL EUROPE 125 

rope — for, of course, like the Chancellor, he 
wants a new Europe — which it is to produce. 
For it is on German Kultur and not on German 
nationality that the new world is to be built up. 

This is not the place for a full examination of 
the principles of Naumann's book. Those who 
are interested in these things will find much that 
is stimulating in his discussion as to the essential 
characteristics of German culture. On the Con- 
tinent discussion has been chiefly confined to 
the economic questions involved, and there has 
been a serious consideration of the practical 
difficulties in bringing about any permanent com- 
mercial union, first between Austria and Hun- 
gary and then between the Dual Monarchy and 
Germany. This concentration on one element 
of the problem is misleading and dangerous. It 
obscures what is even more important — the 
political questions at stake. For though the new 
state which he desires is to be erected on an in- 
dustrial basis, it is to be something much broader 
in its effects than this, and it implies nothing less 
than a permanent transfiguration of the whole of 
Europe. 

That which at this moment alone is important 
are the practical results which he advocates. In 
them, though his formula is different, there is 
nothing to choose between him and the craziest 
of the Germano-maniacs or the headstrong fire- 
eaters of the Kreuz-Zeitung and the Hamburger 
Nachrichten. What he wants and what he hopes 



126 THE ISSUE 

to attain is a Europe which would be completely 
subject to Germany, and his whole book is an 
explanation as to how this is to be brought about. 
It matters nothing that it is to be done in the 
name of organisation rather than nationalism, 
that the new state is to be called Central Europe 
and not Germany, that he talks more of bankers 
than of armies; the essential thing is that he 
postulates a new Europe, a new Europe that is 
to be governed from Berlin. But the Allies do 
not intend to have this new Europe ; they prefer 
the old. 

What is the new Europe to be ? The kernel is 
a permanent union between Germany and Aus- 
tria-Hungary, a union commercial, political, and 
military. It is not to be a mere treaty arrange- 
ment, but an organised federal union with com- 
mon institutions. There is to be a common 
army, a customs union, and common commercial 
policy, and, what is even more important, com- 
mon industrial legislation. This is more impor- 
tant; for it means common legislation on the 
details of life which will affect the habits of each 
individual. The whole industrial organisation of 
the German Empire, improved and adapted 
where necessary, will be applied to all the con- 
stituent states. The committees and public offices 
by which this will be done will therefore have a 
control over the economic conditions which will 
put each individual in complete subjection to 
them. 



CENTRAL EUROPE 127 

In explaining his point of view, Naumann does 
not scruple completely to throw over the whole 
doctrine of German nationalism, and to pour 
contempt on the suggestion that the war was 
one merely for the defence of the German Na- 
tion. It is, he tells us, " a mistake to speak of 
this war as a decisive struggle between Germans 
and Slavs." They have to give up singing, 
" Deutschland, Deutschland iiber Alles." They 
have to remember that they have non-Germanic 
allies. It is no good to continue laying stress on 
the national idea. '' The highest temperature of 
the struggles of nationalities is past." " After 
the war there will have to be a great revision of 
methods, with relaxation of the Germanising 
force." '' The Germans are bad Germanisers." 
" How pleasing it would be for us to make the 
Czechs into Germans, if we could; but it is simply 
impossible," and so we must talk less of nation- 
ality. These matters must be put into the back- 
ground; they are of secondary importance. 
They must give way to the state-forming prin- 
ciple of the future, and that is organisation. 

But let us not be deceived : all this might lead 
us to think that this European State of the 
future was to be an equal federation of equal 
races. No one who knows his Germany would 
believe that for a moment. When we say that 
nationality is no longer the creative force of the 
future, we only mean that it is not to be the 
creative force for the Poles and the Hungarians 



128 THE ISSUE 

and the Czechs and the Croatians. They have 
to recognise that these ideas belong to the past 
in order that they may be brought into the great 
mid-European State; but here it comes out 
nakedly and boldly: " Mitteleiiropa will in its 
kernel be German; it will, of course, use the 
German language as the medium of communica- 
tion." It is true there is to be concession to the 
languages of all races which have their part in 
it, but these would be subordinate and local 
languages; they would be as Welsh or Gaelic 
is with us, and will accept, with proper humil- 
ity, their subordinate position as local dialects in 
the great state, which will be, in its heart and 
essence, German. On the continent of Europe, 
from Constantinople to Antwerp, and from Riga 
to Trieste, there would be one great organisation, 
one army, one financial and commercial system, 
and this will be German. 

An admirable picture, an enticing future, but 
will these small, inferior, and secondary races 
accept it? Will the Poles and the Hungarians 
acquiesce in a future which condemns them in- 
evitably to be absorbed into the great Germany 
of the future, in which their own language, their 
own traditions, and their own culture will be 
irrevocably condemned to a gradual and passion- 
less extinction ? They will remain with the peas- 
ant costume and quaint local customs, to be 
visited by the antiquarians of the future who 
wish in the dead monotony of this commercial 



CENTRAL EUROPE 129 

state to find the dying remnants of the old days 
in which there still were separate races in Europe. 
Are they willing to look forward to a future in 
which they will be but as the few Wendish peas- 
ants who still maintain their language among 
the marshes and forests of the Spreewald, and 
provide wet nurses for the children of their 
German masters? 

What are to be the limits of the new state he 
does not tell us. He is debarred from discussing 
this by the prohibition of any writing on the 
conditions of peace. He is, however, quite de- 
cided that it is not to be confined to the two 
great Central Powers. Their union is to be the 
nucleus to which the other lesser states of Cen- 
tral Europe are to be attracted. 

In order to understand the central problem 
we must keep in mind the explanations as to the 
extent of the industrial territory. Industrial 
Central Europe must be larger than the present 
territory of Germany, Austria, and Hungary. 
We have, owing to the military situation, re- 
frained from naming definite neighbouring states, 
and have only dwelt on the general idea that there 
must be further additions. 

His contention is that first the union with 
Austria-Hungary has to be completed, and then 
this will be followed by the adhesion of other 
countries. Which these countries will be he 
leaves an open question; he warns his readers 



130 THE ISSUE 

against the exaggerated hopes of some of his 
countrymen, but he leaves no doubt that exten- 
sive additions are necessary, and will be secured, 
and the complete picture of Central Europe, as 
we can gather it from his words, is a state as 
powerful, as dominant as any of the dreams of 
the most uncompromising Pan-Germans; it is, 
in fact, greater, for by giving up the formula of 
Germanism he in reality gives up what must be 
a limiting condition. To an enlarged Germany 
there must be limits, for, after all, no one can 
maintain that the whole of Central Europe is 
Germanic; to a new state governed and directed 
from Germany, but one which definitely takes no 
account of nationality, the binding force of which 
is the commercial and industrial union, no limit 
need be placed. 

And so he asks the question : " Whom shall 
we invite to enter the union?" But he does 
not answer it; for this is " a section of our work 
over which more than over any other the word 
' caution ' is written, for we are in the midst of 
war, and for very sufficient reasons must not 
publish anything on ' Kriegs^iele/ in the ordi- 
nary sense of the word." But we have a warning 
against the exaggerated hopes which are not 
uncommon in Germany, a warning which is a 
useful criticism on the statements of those who, 
like the Chancellor, are never tired of telling us 
that the Germans are fighting merely for safety 
and security. 



CENTRAL EUROPE 131 

There are, indeed, in Germany, as in other 
parts of Europe just now, a number of people 
who place no restraint on their unbridled imag- 
ination, and speak as though they had entrusted 
to them, as a secondary duty, the administration 
of Holland, Scandinavia, Rumania, Bulgaria, 
Greece, and the Turkish Empire, and only need 
write the names of these countries down on paper 
in order to bring them into the domain of Cen- 
tral Europe. Yes, there are bold thinkers who 
will at once bring in Switzerland, France, Spain, 
and, after a short period of purification, even 
Italy, and then found the United States of Eu- 
rope with or without Belgium. 

If he does not categorically answer his own 
question, at least he gives us, with all discretion, 
an indication of how he would answer it, and 
the possibilities which he opens show what is 
reckoned as moderation in Germany. 

The territory of Germany and Austria-Hun- 
gary, as it lies before us shut off by the war, is, 
of course, not sufficient as an industrial province, 
for it is in far too high a degree an importer of 
food and raw material, and already is dependent 
in much too great an extent on industrial expor- 
tation to be able to maintain itself by its own 
exertion even in the chief articles. A Central 
Europe that is to be self-sufficient requires bor- 
dering agricultural districts, and must make their 
adhesion possible and desirable to them; it re- 
quires, if possible, an extension of the northern 



132 THE ISSUE 

and southern seacoast, it requires its share in 
colonial possessions. But how can we speak of 
all these things without intruding on investiga- 
tions as to neutrality or the coming negotiations 
of the peace congress? Whether and in what 
condition we shall get back our colonies by 
exchange at the peace no man can say. In our 
opinion we must not let ourselves be robbed of 
our colonial activity at any price, and, if it is 
unavoidable, must make concessions of the land 
we have occupied in order not to cease to be a 
colonising nation. And who can say how, after 
the war, the future lines of trenches will run 
through Central Europe? Will they run on this 
or the other side of Rumania and Bessarabia? 
Will they follow the Vistula? Is Bulgaria to be 
counted as belonging to the " sphere of interest " 
of Central Europe? Shall we gain a railway 
line to Constantinople, placed safely in the hands 
of our Allies? What harbours on the Mediter- 
ranean will come into consideration as the 
terminus of the Central European railway lines? 
What is to happen to Antwerp? How will 
the Baltic look after the war? There are a 
hundred questions the answer to which is still 
to come. 

Well, Naumann is a wiser man than many of 
his countrymen. He knows that it is not enough 
to state what you would like to get ; a premature 
publication of their demands will do more harm 
than good; there is a virtue in silence and re- 
serve. But he clearly indicates where his de- 



CENTRAL EUROPE 133 

sires go. This new state will be well endowed. 
He will not mention Switzerland . or Holland, 
for that would raise difficult questions of neu- 
trality; he is not sure where the boundary is to 
be drawn in Poland — at the Vistula or at the 
marshes of Pripet; which Mediterranean ports 
will come in we do not yet know, whether it will 
be Salonica or Vallona or Smyrna; and they 
cannot be sure that they will secure Bulgaria and 
Rumania and Bessarabia, or whether the gain 
will be in the Baltic Provinces of Russia. The 
details of the picture are not complete, but the 
general idea is there, and in its essential features 
it does not differ from that of the Pan-German 
writers whom he repudiates, a Germany ruling 
all Central Europe and choosing the districts that 
are to be included on the sure ground of their 
commercial and industrial value. 

II 

Central Europe will not be national; it will 
only be the rule of Germanism. It will not be 
peaceful; for it will primarily be organised for 
war. Neither will it be free. Only children and 
dreamers will believe that this new organisation 
will find any place for parliamentary government 
or democratic control. We have to picture to 
ourselves, as Naumann points out, a gradual 
separation of the new industrial and military 
state from the old national states ; this will have 



134 THE ISSUE 

its own institutions, and will administer the 
common affairs. 

Now, how will these common affairs be con- 
trolled? Not by a separate parliament, but by 
special commissions consisting of experts ap- 
pointed by the constituent states. The work of 
those commissions, and that means the whole 
government in all that concerns the highest and 
essential functions of the state, will be concen- 
trated in a new bureaucracy. 

If such important departments of life as 
customs, provisions, the administration of war 
loans, the control of trusts and syndicates, are 
made the subject of Central European treaties 
and commissions, then there will remain indeed 
the final approval to the parliaments, but it 
cannot be maintained that they will not be 
excluded from practical participation in them 
more than has been the case hitherto. 

Naumann adds, quite justly, that even now 
the influence of parliaments on these matters 
has in fact been small ; in particular, commercial 
policy has become highly technical, and no mem- 
ber can understand all the details of commer- 
cial life. The withdrawal of these matters 
from parliamentary control will then only be 
the continuance of a tendency that has already 
begun: democratic control has shown itself in- 
effective, and it is quite natural that it should 
be diminished. And as for commercial affairs. 



CENTRAL EUROPE 135 

so also for military and naval. Central Europe 
will be a single military union: 

In this there lies for all the states that take 
part in it a certain limitation of their own policy, 
for they give up waging war alone. In this 
limitation there is at the same time contained a 
powerful protection of their existence, for they 
are no longer exposed to being attacked alone. 
Whoever belongs to the military union is thereby 
secured as far as lies within the power of the 
common army. 

We have, then, our Union, commercial, indus- 
trial, and military, with common institutions 
managing these great departments of public life 
which are withdrawn from the administration of 
the individual states, just as in modern Germany 
they are withdrawn from the administration of 
Saxony or Baden. In Germany they are in the 
hands of the Imperial administration, with which 
is coupled the Reichstag elected by universal 
suffrage. Well! The Reichstag has not been 
able to establish control over the administration 
as has the English Parliament, but none the less 
it has been able to exercise what has often been 
a very inconvenient, because effective, criticism. 
And it has always exerted a real control over the 
provision of money. New laws cannot be passed 
and new taxes cannot be levied without its as- 
sent, and had it not been there the Government 
of Germany would have been very different. 



136 THE ISSUE 

There would have been no power able to curb 
the Prussian bureaucracy, the Court, the landed 
classes, and the great financial interests. There 
would have been no workmen's protection, for 
there would have been no socialistic party to be 
combated and appeased. What is proposed — 
and it is an inevitable result of the Union 
of Europe — is a German Empire without a 
Reichstag. 

In this enlarged Empire who will govern? 

First will come military matters, for it will be 
on the army that it will rest, as it was by the 
army that it was created. This army will be 
one raised by universal and compulsory enlist- 
ment, but the conditions of service, the size of 
the army, the discipline, will be controlled on 
purely military considerations, and there will be 
no parliamentary assembly constitutionally quali- 
fied to discuss and criticise. In the hands of 
these central authorities will next be placed the 
full control of imports and exports, all that con- 
cerns the daily food of the people, the organisa- 
tion of industry, and the conditions of labour; 
but there will be no central parliament with its 
representatives of all classes who can voice their 
hardships and demands. All will be in the hands 
of the expert and the specialist. And who are 
the experts and specialists? In military matters 
they are the General Staff and the War Office; 
in commercial affairs they are the great Jewish 
bankers. Naumann tells us in so many words 



CENTRAL EUROPE 137 

that it is to the Jews that he looks to help in 
the introduction of German commercial habits to 
the more backward countries, such as Hungary. 
And in this society a place will be found, as soon 
as the destruction of the British Empire has 
made way for the " freedom of the seas," for the 
managers of the great shipping firms. 

Well, we can easily imagine this great state of 
the future, a state in which military power 
prepares the way for commercial efficiency, in 
which all production is controlled by the great 
financiers working through the constitutional and 
orderly channels of a highly trained and obedient 
bureaucracy, in which a close tariff provides that 
the Union shall be self-sufficing and not depend- 
ent on trade with other countries. But in this 
new political condition what place will there be 
for freedom, and what for democracy? The 
soldier who has risked his life in the trenches, as 
he was taught, for the security of Germany, the 
father who has lost his son, and the woman her 
husband, will see that what they had fought for 
is not the permanence and security of the old 
Germany that they knew and loved, a Germany 
in which a fresh step had been made to smooth 
away the inequalities of rank and condition, but 
the establishment over Germany of a new and 
autocratic Government which will for all time 
remove the prospect that the simple German 
citizen will have any real share in the control of 
the conditions of his own life. He will come 



138 THE ISSUE 

back to a state in which the pressure of military 
service will not be relaxed, but it will now not be 
service in defence of the Fatherland, but of a 
cosmopolitan state in which his own labour will 
be exposed to the competition of Slovenians and 
Poles. 

The danger to liberty is indeed far greater 
than we thought. Modern Germany would join 
together in one fabric of rule the three great 
elements which control man — the military state, 
capitalism, and the organisation of industry. 
The army, the trade union, and the organisation 
of finance and capital — in England we have 
them all, but they are independent of one an- 
other, and to a large extent even hostile; each 
therefore neutralises the other. The system 
which Germany wishes to impose on Europe, 
and which it will impose unless it is defeated in 
this war, is one in which the same state which 
men serve in the army will, in its care for the 
well-being of the workingman, govern each de- 
tail of his working-day, and in its support of in- 
dustry be able to manipulate the prices of each 
article of food and clothing; and this state will 
be freed from all popular control — it will be a 
great syndicate of bankers, and it will have un- 
der its orders an army twice the size of the 
German army that we know. 

The value to Germany of this scheme is that it 
shows clearly that annexations are unnecessary 
as a means to the establishing of German do- 



CENTRAL EUROPE i39 

minion. It gives a guide which may be of real 
use to an adroit politician. It is on annexation 
that the controversy with the Socialists turns, 
and a crude policy of annexation, of the kind 
which the noisy politicians demand, would revolt 
the moral sense of the world. But why not get 
the same ends without using the word? Give 
back her independence to Belgium, set up an 
autonomous Poland, restore perhaps even the 
shadow of her national existence to Serbia, and 
maintain the alliance with Bulgaria, but let the 
independence and the autonomy be conditional 
on the conclusion of an alliance with Germany 
and Austria by which the armies of the subject 
states are obedient to the orders that come from 
Berlin, in which the ports are open to German 
ships of war, and see to it that the next war shall 
be fought not on the German frontier, but on 
the frontiers of these subject principalities. 
Circle them with a barricade of trenches, so that 
no hostile army shall ever be able to advance 
over their territory, and Germany will be safely 
cushioned, and the rude shock of war would 
fall, not on Cologne and Danzig, but on Antwerp 
and Warsaw. 

It is not merely by annexations that the great 
empires of the world have been built up. Rome, 
when she conquered Italy, did not annex it, nor 
did England begin by annexing India. That is a 
later stage; that comes when the memory and 
desire for independence have disappeared; till 



140 THE ISSUE 

then the halfway house of a semi- federal union 
will suffice. 

A careful reading of the Chancellor's speeches 
will show that Dr. Naumann has in him a sym- 
pathiser. What the Chancellor has again and 
again demanded is not annexations, but guaran- 
tees — guarantees for the security of Germany, 
guarantees political, military, and commercial. 
These are precisely Naumann's requirements. 
But this way of putting the case creates an 
impression of moderation, and might easily mis- 
lead the inexperienced, either in England or in 
other countries, to believe that here we really 
had suggestions on which a permanent and just 
peace might be made. 

If this is the future which Professor Naumann 
paints for us, that of Professor Troltsch does 
not differ from it: 

For the moment we have a pledge of these 
hopes in the mutual relations of the Central 
States to one another. Here we have not so 
much an idealistic hope, as the requirements of 
practical policy. But if we succeed in forming a 
great Central-European block, with this there 
arises the idea of hope that this conception of the 
peoples based on the German idea of freedom 
may grow beyond it, and attract other states also 
to it. Then there would be freedom and also 
peace at least, for as far as we can see. 

Here it is again the same idea, the Central 
European States attracting to themselves, but. 



CENTRAL EUROPE 141 

of course, in proper subordination, the sur- 
rounding nations. In the mind of a German 
idealist, this takes a peaceful and generous form. 
But it is not by men such as he that the course 
of the world is governed, and we know that the 
attraction of the surrounding nations will be 
managed in the way in which it has been applied 
to Poland, to Belgium, and to Serbia. 

All this is indeed but an outward garnishing 
and decoration. In England, which is governed 
by Parliament, and where every turn of thought 
and every suggestion of an idealist finds its 
proper place in the groove of that public opinion, 
by which the state is governed, we can always 
look confidently to the future, certain that the 
crude exaggerations of war time, the violences of 
military necessity, and the crudities of bellocratic 
organisation will be softened and ameliorated by 
the constant stream of criticism and discussion. 
In Germany we know that this will not be the 
case; there we know that the great machine, 
always growing in perfection and in weight, will 
proceed on its way, careless of the talkers and 
the thinkers who will run by the side and behind, 
finding theories and ideas to justify every action 
that it takes. This machine in the future will 
be infinitely stronger and more self-possessed 
than in the past. They are only children who 
believe that success in this contest will lead to 
any relaxation of the governmental control or 
increase of democratic influence in the state. 



142 THE ISSUE 

All that the Germans now demand is more and 
more organisation, greater and greater efficiency. 
This organisation and efficiency will not be won 
by parliament or the people; it will be won by 
the skilled and educated governing aristocracy of 
the intellect. To this great machine all the 
strength of the nation will contribute, but the 
nation will not guide or control it, and this 
Germany of the future will be associated in 
intimate alliance with the revived Turkish 
Empire. Foreign policy always reacts upon 
internal affairs. This the Germans know well 
from their own past; it was the alliance with 
Russia and with Austria which crushed the free 
development of Germany for a generation. Will 
the Germany which is occupied with setting up a 
military rule in Asia and transporting to another 
continent the chosen plan of financial organisa- 
tion and military power, which is preparing for 
the next great struggle with the British Empire, 
which is laying down railways in Asia Minor 
and Mesopotamia, forcing Turks and Arabs and 
Syrians and Bulgarians to take their place as 
the servant of the state machine; will this Ger- 
man Government tolerate the amateur criticism 
of parliamentary parties and the crude individu- 
alism of romantic seekers after freedom ? 

THE END 



APPENDIX I 

MANIFESTO OF THE SIX INDUSTRIAL 
ASSOCIATIONS ^ 

[Strictly confidential] 

The League of Agriculturalists (Der Bund der 
Landwirte), The German Peasants' League (Der 
Deutsche Bauernbund), The Committee of the 
Christian German Peasant Union, formerly the 
Westphalian Peasant Union (Der Vorort der Christ- 
lichen Deutschen Bauernvereine, zurzeit West- 
falischer Bauernverein), The Central Association 
of German Industrialists (Der Centralverband 
Deutscher Industrieller), The League of Indus- 
trialists (Der Bund der Industriellen), and The Con- 
servative Middle-class Association (Der Reichs- 
deutsche Mittelstandsverband), on May 20, 191 5, 
addressed the following petition to the Imperial 
Chancellor : 

To His Excellency the Imperial Chancellor, 
Dr. Bethmann von Hollweg. 

Berlin, May 20, 1915. 
Excellency, 

Together with the whole German people, those 
occupied in business pursuits, whether in agriculture 

1 This is translated from the original text published by 
the Alliance Franjaise. The italics are as in the original. 



144 APPENDIX 

or industry, in trade or manufacture, are determined 
to endure to the end, notwithstanding every sacri- 
fice, in this struggle for life and death which has 
been forced upon Germany, in order that Germany 
may come out of this struggle stronger in its exter- 
nal relations, with the guarantee of permanent peace, 
and therewith also the guarantee for the security 
of further national, industrial and intellectual de- 
velopment, at home also. 

Even if the military situation were a more un- 
favourable one, or were doubtful, this would make 
no difference, if the object which His Majesty the 
Emperor has himself put before us, both externally 
and internally, is not to be lost. This object can 
only be attained by fighting for a peace which will 
bring us better security for our frontiers in East and 
West, an extension for the foundations of our sea 
power and the possibility of an unchecked and strong 
development of our industrial resources; in short, 
both in politics, in the army, in the navy and in in- 
dustry, those extensions of power which will be a 
guarantee for our greater strength externally. 

The peace which does not bring us these results 
makes a renewal of the struggle unavoidable under 
circumstances which would be essentially less fa- 
vourable to Germany. Therefore no hasty peace. 
For from a hasty peace we could not hope for a 
sufficient prize of victory. 

But also no half-hearted peace, no peace which 
does not include complete political exploitation for 
the military successes, for which we hope in the 
directions indicated. 

The following memorandum, which was drawn up 
on March lo, of this year by the League of Agri- 
culturists, The German Peasants' League, The 
Central Association of German Industrialists, The 
League of Industrialists and the Conservative 



APPENDIX 145 

Middle-class Association, and addressed to Your 
Excellency, and to which the Christian German 
Peasants' Union, which is also a signatory to this 
address, has been added, explains in detail the re- 
quirements which — the necessary military successes 
being assumed — must in the opinion of the under- 
signed Associations be fulfilled in order to secure for 
Germany that political, military and industrial posi- 
tion which would enable her to look with satisfaction 
to all possibilities of the future. 
The memorandum was as follows : 

" The undersigned Corporations have occupied 
themselves with the question of how the formula, 
which has in the last months so often been heard, 
viz. : that this war must be follozued by an honour- 
able peace which corresponds to the sacrifices which 
have been made and contains in itself a guarantee 
for its continuance, can best be realised. 

" In answering this question, it must never be for- 
gotten that our enemies continuously announce that 
Germany is to be annihilated and struck out of the 
rank of the Great Pozvers. In view of these at- 
tempts we shall find no protection in treaties, which, 
when the fitting moment comes, would be again 
trodden underfoot, but only in a weakening of 

OUR ENEMIES, BOTH INDUSTRIALLY AND MILITARILY, 
CARRIED TO SUCH AN EXTENT THAT BY IT PEACE 
WILL BE SECURED SO FAR AS CAN BE FORESEEN. 

" Side by side with the demand for Colonial Em- 
pire, which completely satisfies the many-sided in- 
dustrial interests of Germany, side by side with the 
security of our future in matters of customs and 
commerce and the requirements for sufficient war in- 
demnity to be given in a suitable form, we regard 
the chief end of the struggle which has been forced 
upon us as lying in the security and improvement of 



146 APPENDIX 

the foundations for the European existence of the 
German Empire in the following directions : 

" Belgium 

" In order to provide the necessary security for 
our influence at sea, in order to secure our future 
military and industrial position as against England, 
and in order to bring about the close connexion of 
Belgian territory, which is industrially of such im- 
portance, with our main industrial districts, Belgium 
must be subjected to the German Imperial Leg- 
islation, BOTH IN MILITARY AND TARIFF MATTERS, 
AS WELL AS IN REGARD TO CURRENCY, BANKING AND 

POST. Railways and canals must be incorporated in 
our transport system. In addition the Government 
and Administration of the country must be so man- 
aged that the inhabitants obtain no influence on the 
political fortunes of the German Empire ; there must 
be a separation of the Walloons and of the predomi- 
nantly Flemish territory, and the industrial under- 
takings and landed property, which are so important 
for the Government of the country, must be trans- 
ferred into German hands. 

" France 

" so far as regards france from the same 
point of view as our position towards england, 
the possession of the coastal districts border- 
ING ON Belgium, as far as the neighbourhood of 

THE SOMME, AND WITH THEM ACCESS TO THE AT- 
LANTIC Ocean, must be regarded as a vital 

MATTER FOR OUR FUTURE POSITION AT SEA. The 

' Hinterland,' which must be acquired with them, 
must be so delimited that the complete use of the 
canal-ports which we gain, both for industrial and 
strategic purposes, must be secured. All further ac- 



APPENDIX 147 

quisitions of French Territory, apart from the neces- 
sary annexation of the mining district of Briey, must 
be determined purely according to miUtary and stra- 
tegical considerations. After the experiences of this 
war, it must be regarded as a matter of course that 
we must not in the future leave our frontiers open 
to hostile invasion, as we should do if we left to our 
opponents those fortified positions which threaten 
us, and in particular Verdun and Belfort and the 
part of the Western slopes of the Vosges which lies 
between them. With the acquisition of the line of 
the Meuse and the French coast to which the canals 
lead, and the mining districts of Briey, which have 
been mentioned, the possession of the canal districts 
in the department of the Nord and the Pas de Calais 
is necessarily included. It is a matter of course, 
after our experiences in Alsace-Lorraine, that these 
annexations be based on the condition that the 
population of the annexed districts shall not be 
placed in the position to exercise political influence 
on the fortunes of the German Empire, and that 

INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS, INCLUDING BOTH 
LARGE AND MODERATE-SIZED PROPERTIES, SHOULD BE 
TRANSFERRED TO GeRMAN HANDS, WHILE FrANCE 
SHOULD COMPENSATE AND TAKE OVER THEIR OWNERS. 



" Russia 

" For the East the determining consideration must 
be that the great addition to our industry in the 
West must be counterbalanced by an equivalent 
annexation of agricultural territory in the East. 
The present industrial structure of Germany has 
shown itself so fortunate in the present war, that 
the necessity for maintaining it for as long a time as 
we can foresee may well be termed the general con- 
viction of our people. 



148 APPENDIX 

" The necessity of strengthening also the sound 
agricultural basis of our nation, of making possible 
a German agricultural colonisation on a large scale, 
as well as the restoration to the territory of the 
Empire, and to our industrial system, of the German 
peasants who are living abroad, especially those 
settled in Russia and at present deprived of their 
rights, and of strengthening and raising the numbers 
of our population capable of bearing arms, requires 
a considerable extension of the imperial and 
Prussian frontiers in the East by annexation 
of at least parts of the baltic provinces and 
of those territories which lie to the south of 
IT, while keeping in mind the object of making our 
Eastern German frontier one capable of military 
defence. 

" The reconstruction of East Prussia requires a 
better security of its frontiers by placing in front of 
them considerable districts, and also West Prussia, 
Posen and Silicia must not remain frontier marches 
exposed to danger as they now are. 

" With regard to the granting of political rights 
to the inhabitants of the new districts and the 
securing of German industrial influence, that applies 
which has already been said about France. The war 
indemnity to be paid by Russia will have to consist 
to a large extent in change in the proprietorship of 
the soil. 

" The Grounds for Annexation 

" Of course these demands depend on the hypothe- 
sis that military results will enable them to be carried 
out. In accordance with what we have already 
achieved, we have firm confidence in our army and 
its leaders that a victory will be secured which will 
guarantee the attainment of these ends. These ends 
are to be put before us, not from a policy of con- 



APPENDIX 149 

quest, but because it is only the attainment of these 
ends which will secure the permanent peace, which, 
after the great sacrifices which have been made, the 
German people in all its branches expects, quite 
apart from the fact that, according to our view, a 
voluntary surrender of the hostile territories which 
have been watered with so much German blood, and 
in which are found innumerable graves of the very 
best of our people, would not correspond to the feel- 
ing of the people and their conception of an hon- 
ourable peace. 

" In the future as in the past, the want of harbours 
directly on the Channel would strangle our activity 
beyond the seas. An independent Belgium would 
continue to be a tete du pont to England, a point 
from which to attack us. The natural line of forti- 
fications of France in the hands of the French im- 
plies a permanent menace to our frontiers ; and Rus- 
sia, if she emerged from the war without loss of 
territory, would despise our capacity for action and 
the power which might check her in disturbing our 
interests, while on the other side the failure to attain 
agricultural territories on our Eastern frontier would 
diminish the possibility of strengthening the defen- 
sive power of Germany against Russia by a sufficient 
increase of the German population." 

As a supplement to this manifesto, we must here 
lay special stress on the fact that the political, mili- 
tary and industrial objects which the German people 
must strive after in the interests of the security of 
their future, stand in the closest connexion with and 
cannot be separated from one another. It is clear, 
to start with, that the attainment of our great politi- 
cal objects depends on the ofifensive power and the 
successes of our army. There can, however, be no 
doubt, particularly after the experiences of this war, 



150 APPENDIX 

that our military successes and their exploitation in 
a wide field is conditioned by the industrial strength 
and active power of our people, and this especially if 
we take a long view. If German agriculture had not 
been in a position to secure the food of the people 
despite all the efforts of our enemies, and if German 
industry, German inventing spirit and German tech- 
nical skill had not been in the condition to make us 
independent of foreign countries in the most dif- 
ferent spheres, then, notwithstanding the brilliant 
successes of our victorious troops, we should have 
eventually had to give way in the struggle which 
had been forced upon us, if indeed we should not 
have already been defeated. 

In a very special manner this applies to the re- 
quirements put forward in the Memorandum, on 
the one side for the acquisition of territory suitable 
to agricultural settlers, and on the other side for 
seizing the mining district of the Meurthe and 
Moselle as well as of the French coaling districts in 
the Departments of the Nord and the Pas de Calais 
and also the Belgian. 

We cannot do without the acquisition of sufficient 
territory suitable for agricultural settlement, both 
in the interests of the extension of the agricultural 
foundations of our national industry, and included 
in this, the maintenance of that happy balance in 
our whole industrial system which has been recog- 
nised as so necessary in the present war, and also 
for the security of the source of the national strength 
of our people, and especially the increase in the 
numbers of the population which flows from a vigor- 
ous agriculture and which strengthens our military 
power. 

In the same way, acquisitions such as that of the 
mining and coal districts which have been spoken 
of, are not only in the interests of the development 



APPENDIX 151 

of our industrial forces, but also represent the mili- 
tary interests. 

The security of the German Empire in a future 
war also imperatively requires the possession of the 
whole adjoining territory of Luxemburg and Lor- 
raine, including the fortifications of Longwy and 
Verdun, without which this territory cannot be held. 

The possession of larger supplies of coal and, in 
particular, of coal rich in bitumen, which is found in 
great quantities in the basin of Northern France, is 
decisive for the result of the war, at least to as great 
an extent as is iron ore. 

Belgium and North France together produce over 
forty million tons.^ 

In conclusion, it may be said that the objects 
which we have in view for the permanent security 
of our industry, are also the objects which guarantee 
us our military strength, and thereby our political 
independence and power, quite apart from the fact 
that, by the extension of our capacity for industrial 
activity, they increase and secure opportunities for 
work, and thereby serve to the advantage of the 
whole of the working classes. 

1 The German ton is slightly smaller than the English ton; 
the German ton contains 1000 kgs., the English ton 1016 
kgs. 



APPENDIX II 

GERMANY'S PEACE TERMS 

Manifesto of the German Professors ^ 

A REMARKABLE programme adopted by a number of 
German professors and other intellectuals, at a 
meeting held on June 20, in the Berlin Kiinstlerhaus, 
for the purpose of its being presented in petition 
form to the German Imperial Chancellor, was pub- 
lished in Berne, Switzerland, on August 10. The 
document is printed off in characters to resemble 
manuscript. Among the signatories are Friedrich 
Meinecke, Professor of History, Berlin; Hermann 
Oncken, Professor of History, Heidelberg; Herr 
von Reichenau, retired diplomat; Herr von 
Schwerin, Regierungs-president, of Frankfurt-am- 
Main, and Dietrich Schafer, Professor of History, 
Berlin. 

" The German people and their Emperor have 
preserved peace for forty-four years, preserved it 
until its further maintenance was incompatible with 
national honour and our continued existence. De- 
spite her increase in strength and population, never 
has Germany thought of transgressing the narrow 
bounds of her possessions on the European Conti- 
nent with a view to conquest. Upon the world's 

1 This is taken from a version published in America: 

Current History (October, 191 5). 



APPENDIX 153 

markets alone was she forced to make an entry, so as 
to insure her economic existence by peacefully com- 
peting with other nations. 

" To our enemies, however, even these narrow 
limits and a share of the world's trade necessary to 
our existence seemed too much, and they formed 
plans which aimed at the very annihilation of the 
German Empire. Then we Germans rose as one 
man, from the highest to the meanest, realising that 
we must defend not only our external life but also 
our inner, spiritual and moral life — in short, de- 
fend German and European civilisation (Kultur) 
against barbarian hordes from the east, and desire 
for vengeance and domination from the west. With 
God's help, hand in hand with our trusty ally, we 
have been able victoriously to assert ourselves 
against half a world of enemies. 

" Now, however, another foe has arisen, in Italy. 
It is no longer sufficient for us merely to defend 
ourselves. Sword in hand, our foes have compelled 
us to make enormous sacrifices of blood and treas- 
ure. Now we want to defend ourselves with all our 
might against a repetition of such an attack from 
every side, against a whole succession of wars, and 
against the possibility of our enemies again becoming 
strong. Moreover, we are determined to establish 
ourselves so firmly on such a broad expanse of se- 
curely won homeland that our independent existence 
is guaranteed for generations to come. 

" As to these main objects the nation is unanimous 
in its determination. The plain truth, for which 
there is the most absolute foundation, is this. Only 
one fear exists in all classes of our people, and espe- 
cially is there a deep-seated fear prevailing among 
the most simple-minded sections that mistaken ideas 
of atonement (VersdhnungsiUusioncn) or 'even nerv- 
ous impatience might lead to the conclusion of a pre- 



154 APPENDIX 

mature and consequently patched-up peace, which 
could never be lasting; and that, as happened a 
hundred years ago, the pen of the diplomats might 
ruin what the sword has successfully conquered, and 
this perhaps in the most fateful hour of German 
history, when popular feeling has attained an inten- 
sity and unanimity which was never known in the 
past and which will not so easily recur in the future. 

" Let there be no mistake. We do not wish to 
dominate the world, but to have a standing in it 
fully corresponding to the greatness of our position 
as a civilised power and our economic and military 
strength. It may be that owing to the numerical 
superiority of our enemies we cannot obtain every- 
thing we wish in order to insure our position as a 
nation ; but the military results of this war, obtained 
by such great sacrifices, must be utilised to the very 
utmost possible extent. This, we repeat, is the firm 
determination of the German people. 

** To give clear expression to this fixed popular 
determination, and to convey such expression to the 
Government, to afford it strong support in its diffi- 
cult task of enforcing Germany's necessary claims 
against a few faint-hearted individuals at home as 
well as bitter enemies abroad, is the duty and right 
of those whose education and position raise them 
to the level of intellectual leaders and protagonists of 
public opinion, and we make appeal to them to 
fulfil this duty. 

" Being well aware that a distinction must be 
drawn between the objects of the war and the final 
conditions of peace, that everything of necessity 
depends on the final success of our arms, and that 
it cannot be our business to discuss Austria-Hun- 
gary's and Turkey's military objects, we have drawn 
up the following brief statement of what, according 
to our conviction, constitutes for Germany the guar- 



APPENDIX 155 

antecs of a lasting peace and the goals to which the 
blood-stained roads of this war must lead. 



" I. France 

" After being threatened by France for centuries, 
and after hearing the cry of vengeance from 181 5 
till 1870 and from 1871 till 191 5, we wish to have 
done with the French menace once for all. All 
classes of our people are imbued with this desire. 
There must, however, be no misplaced attempts at 
expiation {Versdhmmgshemuhungen), which have 
always been opposed by France with the utmost 
fanaticism; and as regards this we would utter a 
most urgent warning to Germans not to deceive 
themselves. Even after the terrible lesson of this 
unsuccessful war of vengeance, France will still 
thirst for revenge, in so far as her strength permits. 
For the sake of our own existence we must ruthlessly 
weaken her both politically and economically, and 
must improve our military and strategical position 
with regard to her. For this purpose in our opinion 
it is necessary radically to improve our whole west- 
ern front from Belfort to the coast. Part of the 
North French Channel coast we must acquire, if 
possible, in order to be strategically safer as re- 
gards England and to secure better access to the 
ocean. 

" Special measures must be taken to avoid the 
German Empire in any way suffering internally 
owing to this enlargement of its frontier and addi- 
tion to its territory. In order not to have conditions 
such as those in Alsace-Lorraine the most important 
business undertakings and estates must be trans- 
ferred from anti-German ownership to German 
hands, France taking over and compensating the 
former owners. Such portion of the population as 



156 APPENDIX 

is taken over by us must be allowed absolutely no 
influence in the Empire. 

" Furthermore, it is necessary to impose a merci- 
lessly hig-h war indemnity (of which more hereafter) 
upon France, and probably on her rather than on 
any other of our enemies, however terrible the 
financial losses she may have already suffered owing 
to her own folly and British self-seeking. We must 
also not forget that she has comparatively large 
colonial possessions, and that, should circumstances 
arise, England could hold on to these with impunity 
if we do not help ourselves to them. 



" 2. Belgium 

" On Belgium, on the acquisition of which so much 
of the best German blood has been shed, we must 
keep firm hold, from the political, military, and 
economic standpoints, despite any arguments which 
may be urged to the contrary. On no point are the 
masses more united, for without the slightest possible 
doubt they consider it a matter of honour to hold 
on to Belgium. 

" From the political and military standpoints it 
is obvious that, were this not done, Belgium would 
be neither more nor less than a basis from which 
England could attack and most dangerously menace 
Germany, in short, a shield behind which our foes 
would again assemble against us. Economically 
Belgium means a prodigious increase of power 
to us. 

" In time also she may entail a considerable addi- 
tion to our nation, if in course of time the Flemish 
element, which is so closely allied to us, becomes 
emancipated from the artificial grip of French cul- 
ture and remembers its Teutonic affinities. 

" As to the problems which we shall have to solve 



APPENDIX 157 

once we possess Belgium, we would lay special stress 
on the inhabitants being allowed no political influence 
in the Empire, and on the necessity for transferring 
from anti-German to German hands the leading 
business enterprises and properties in the districts 
to be ceded by France." 

The manifesto speaks of the growing Russian 
peril, and says that the occupied part of Russia 
should become a rich agricidtural country, where 
the surplus German popidation and the refugees who 
have found an asylum in Germany will be settled. 
It proceeds: 

" Russia is so rich in territory that she will be 
able to pay an indemnity in kind by giving lands, but 
lands without landlords. Peace with Russia, which 
would not diminish Russian power and increase 
German territory, would surely lead to a renewal of 
the war. Once the Russians are driven back beyond 
their new frontier we shall not forget the war which 
England has made on the maritime and colonial 
commerce of Germany. That must be the guide of 
our action. We must supplant the world trade of 
Great Britain. By her blockade of Germany, Eng- 
land has instructed us in the art of being a European 
power militarily and industrially independent of 
others. We must immediately seek to create for 
ourselves, apart from the empire of the seas, a Con- 
tinental commercial enceinte as extensive as possible. 
Our friends Austria-Hungary and Turkey will open 
to us the Balkans and Asia Minor, and thus we shall 
assure ourselves of the Persian Gulf against the pre- 
tensions of Russia and Great Britain.^ We must also 
sign as speedily as possible commercial treaties with 
our close political friends. Then we shall devote 
our attention to recovering our overseas commerce. 



158 APPENDIX 

Our old commercial and maritime treaties must be 
renewed, and everywhere we must obtain the same 
treatment as Great Britain. In Africa we must 
reconstitute our colonial empire. Central Africa is 
only a huge desert, which does not offer enough 
colonial wealth. We therefore require other pro- 
ductive lands, and herein is to be found the impor- 
tance of our alliance with Islam and the utility of 
our maritime outlet. Those who want to exchange 
Belgium for our colonies forget that not only are 
colonies the foundation of all European power, but 
that colonies without an opening to the sea would 
always be the slaves of the good or ill will of Eng- 
land. We need liberty of the seas, which was the 
real cause of war between England and Germany. 
To obtain it we must have Egypt, the connecting- 
link between British Africa and British Asia — 
Egypt, which with Australia makes the Indian 
Ocean an English sea, which joins up all the British 
colonies with the mother country, which, as Bismarck 
said, is the neck of the British Empire. That is 
where England must be shaken. The Suez Canal 
route will then be free, and Turkey will regain her 
ancient right. 

"The Press 

" But England also invades the universal press ; 
we must take this monopoly away. Our best arm 
against English permeation is the liberty which, as 
leaders of Europe, we shall bring to the whole 
world. With regard to war indemnities, we shall de- 
mand an indemnity which, as much as possible, shall 
cover war expenditure, the repair of damage, and 
pensions for disabled men, widows, and orphans. 
We know that the question has been examined by 
the Government according to the financial capacities 
of our enemies. From England, which has been so 



APPENDIX 159 

niggardly in men, we can never demand enough 
money, because England raised the world against us 
with gold. It is our duty to crush the insatiable 
cupidity of this nation. However, we shall probably 
have to apply for a war indemnity to France in the 
first place, if not exclusively. We ought not to hesi- 
tate to impose upon France as much as possible out 
of false sentimentalism. As mitigation she might be 
offered one of the sides of the Suez Canal, while we 
occupy the other. Should France refuse that, as 
well as the financial obligation that we should ask 
her, we should have to impose on her a policy which 
would satisfy us. We do not want a policy of cul- 
ture without a policy of action. Germany must in- 
sure her political and commercial life before trying 
to propagate her spirit. Let us at first give a healthy 
body to our German soul." 

The manifesto concludes with this saying of 
Bismarck: 

" ' Whenever, in any sphere of politics or else- 
where, one thinks one has touched an obstacle with 
one's finger, courage and victory no longer stand in 
the relation of cause to effect, but are identical.' " 



W92 










..s^> 



\■'^ 











v*^ 



^^o< 



^* 



.■^°^ 



X 



\;^-\/ V*^*/ V^-\/ 



' ^'^^ ,^*' 









5» •» ''Sfi^ « 



<^^ 






♦TT.' ^ 




.4* .-'J^' ** ,0* .•JL*. 







^^^' X^ *^^a^S* 'T^ «^ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper procei 






0^ 



^ Deacid 
^yj>^ o%y Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
^ *''^K/iBEs^** 'i' ^ "^i Treatment Date: 

V ♦ b«:nSN,».^^ V? A^ *r^tjr9>x, * ^i^ a world leader in paper phesebvatk 

"* 111 Thomson Park Drive 

Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 








^o^..«:^%^^ <^*i^i'.\. 4f.*i:A^^' 



• -^^ 



<*. 



- '^^c,"^' 







*^o« 



